Exchange Server Pro » Management Tools

Initialization Failed: The Operation Couldn’t Be Completed Because a Change Occurred in the Remote Forest

Paul Cunningham — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:23:53 +0000

When you are launching the Exchange Server 2010 management console you may receive the following error message.

Initialization Failed: The Operation Couldn’t Be Completed Because a Change Occurred in the Remote Forest

Initlalization Failed error message launching Exchange 2010 management console

This error can occur when the server the management console is connecting to has been upgraded to a higher Service Pack or Update Rollup version than the server or workstation that you are launching the management console from.

To resolve the issue upgrade your management server or workstation to the same version as the Exchange servers in your organization.

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Exchange 2010 FAQ: How Do I Install the Exchange 2010 Management Tools?

Paul Cunningham — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 21:56:20 +0000

Question: How do I install the Exchange Server 2010 management tools on my workstation?

The Exchange Server 2010 management tools can be installed on a computer running one of the following operating systems:

Windows Vista 64-bit with Service Pack 2
Windows 7 64-bit
Windows Server 2008 64-bit with Service Pack 2
Windows Server 2008 R2

To install the Exchange 2010 management tools on your Windows 7 computer you first need to configure the pre-requisite components.

Open the Control Panel, click on Programs and then click on Turn Windows Features On or Off. Enable the features shown here.

Enable Windows 7 features required for Exchange Server 2010 management tools

Download the Exchange Server 2010 SP1 installation files and extract them to a temporary folder on your computer. From that folder launch Setup.exe. If your computer is missing either the .NET Framework or Windows PowerShell pre-requisites there will be links for Step 1 and 2 to download and install them.

Install pre-requisites for Exchange Server 2010 SP1 on Windows 7

Otherwise click on Step 3 and choose Install only languages from the DVD.

Choose language options for installing Exchange Server 2010 SP1 on Windows 7

Next, click on Step 4 to begin the installation.

Begin installation of Exchange Server 2010 SP1 on Windows 7

Click Next at the introduction page, then accept the license agreement and click Next, then choose your preference for Error Reporting and click Next again.

At the Installation Type page choose Custom Exchange Server Installation, and also tick the box to Automatically install Windows Server roles and features required for Exchange Server and click Next.

Custom Exchange Server installation for installing management tools on Windows 7

Select the Management Tools role and click Next.

Installing the Management Tools role for Exchange 2010 on Windows 7

When the Readiness Checks have completed successfully click Install.

Begin installation of Exchange 2010 management tools on Windows 7

After the install has completed you can launch the Exchange Management Console from the Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 menu.

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Exchange 2010 Certificate Revocation Checks and Proxy Settings

Paul Cunningham — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:00:27 +0000

The Microsoft Exchange Team blog posted about an issue people are experiencing in the field in which certificate revocation status check failures prevent you from assigning a certificate to any Exchange services.

If Exchange can’t access the CRL, the certificate status is returned as RevocationCheckFailure by the shell. In EMC this is displayed as The certificate status could not be determined because the revocation check failed.

When a certificate fails a revocation check due to any of the above reasons, the EMC prevents you from assigning the certificate to any Exchange service. Note, this does not impact certificates that have already been assigned to Exchange services. The services will continue to function.

- Source

Two of the causes of this are listed as:

# Network or proxy misconfiguration, or a firewall rule preventing Internet access

# Intentional blocking of Internet connectivity from the server

In a comment on the post I mention using proxy settings to work around the issue. In other words, if you can use a proxy in Internet Explorer to browse the web when you’re logged onto the server, then you can use this workaround. However, you need to proceed with caution or you may inadvertently break your management connection to the Exchange server.

Firstly, you can check the server’s proxy settings using the netsh command (proxycfg is no longer available in Windows Server 2008 R2).

C:\>netsh winhttp show proxy

Current WinHTTP proxy settings:

    Direct access (no proxy server).

Note: if you can resolve the direct access issue at your proxy/firewall then that is going to be easier than using this procedure. Otherwise, read on.

If you have the correct proxy settings configure in Internet Explorer then netsh lets you import that configuration to the server.

C:\>netsh winhttp import proxy ie

Current WinHTTP proxy settings:

    Proxy Server(s) :  10.10.10.10:80
    Bypass List     :  (none)

Depending on your environment you may find that this breaks you connection to the Exchange server using either the Exchange Management Console or Exchange Management Shell.

VERBOSE: Connecting to ex1.exchangeserverpro.local
[ex1.exchangeserverpro.local] Connecting to remote server failed with the following error message : The client cannot c
onnect to the destination specified in the request. Verify that the service on the destination is running and is accept
ing requests. Consult the logs and documentation for the WS-Management service running on the destination, most commonl
y IIS or WinRM. If the destination is the WinRM service, run the following command on the destination to analyze and co
nfigure the WinRM service: "winrm quickconfig". For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.
    + CategoryInfo          : OpenError: (System.Manageme....RemoteRunspace:RemoteRunspace) [], PSRemotingTransportExc
   eption
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PSSessionOpenFailed

The reason for this is that the Exchange Management Shell is trying to make a remote connection to the server, even when you are logged on to the server that you want to manage. This is known as Remote Shell and you can read more about it here.

You can see here that when I launch the Exchange Management Shell on my lab server there are corresponding entries in the IIS log files for the connection that I just made to the /powershell virtual directory.

The reason that this breaks your management connectivity to the server is that the proxy you are using is not correctly configured to let you access local websites. Fortunately you can resolve this by using proxy exceptions on your local Internet Explorer settings.

If I configure Internet Explorer to automatically bypass for local sites, and then re-import the settings to the server with netsh, I see different output.

C:\>netsh winhttp import proxy ie

Current WinHTTP proxy settings:

    Proxy Server(s) :  10.10.10.10:80
    Bypass List     :  < local >

In some cases this still might not work if Internet Explorer is not correctly detecting local sites and bypassing the configured proxy. In that case you can manually specify the proxy exceptions in Internet Explorer.

Again when you re-import using netsh you see a different result.

C:\>netsh winhttp import proxy ie

Current WinHTTP proxy settings:

    Proxy Server(s) :  10.10.10.10:80
    Bypass List     :  *.exchangeserverpro.local;< local >

Alternatively, you can set a proxy configuration for the server that is different to that of your own Internet Explorer settings.

C:\>netsh winhttp set proxy proxy-server="http://10.10.10.10:80" bypass-list="*.exchangeserverpro.local"

Current WinHTTP proxy settings:

    Proxy Server(s) :  10.10.10.10:80
    Bypass List     :  *.exchangeserverpro.local

Again you need to make sure you set the correct exceptions so that management connectivity to the server isn’t broken in the process.

If you can get the proxy settings configured with the right proxy and exceptions you should be able to connect to the server with the console and shell, and also have the server successfully perform CRL checks for your SSL certificates.

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Exchange Server Pro » Management Tools

Initialization Failed: The Operation Couldn’t Be Completed Because a Change Occurred in the Remote Forest

Related posts:

Exchange 2010 FAQ: How Do I Install the Exchange 2010 Management Tools?

Related posts:

Exchange 2010 Certificate Revocation Checks and Proxy Settings

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