EMS and Exchange Server Installation Path

Hi folks,

Just wanted to share with you the recent adventure that I had. Sometimes there're situations when you will need to re-install Exchange Server binaries on the same server but into the different directory. Sometimes after successful re-installation you may run into the following error when starting Exchange Management Shell or Exchange Management Console (obviously because it runs on top of EMS):

Connecting to remote server failed with the following error message : The WinRM client cannot complete the operation within the time specified. Check if the machine name is valid and is reachable over the network
 and firewall exception for Windows Remote Management service is enabled. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.

This article is a good starting point for troubleshooting. So first make sure that ExchangeInstallPath environment variable exists and points to the right directory. You will need to reconfigure it pointing to the new installation folder.

However there's one more point which was not considered there. This is where this blog post came to my help. Apparently when Exchange binaries IIS cofiguration file (C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config) file remains unchanged. As the result kerbauth parameter is pointing to the old location of kerbauth.dll

It's quite easy to fix it. You will need to run the following steps:

1. Run command line as admin and execute:

notepad C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config

2. In the applicationHost.config locate the following entry:

<add name="kerbauth" image="C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\v14\Bin\kerbauth.dll" />

3. Modify path to the kerbauth.dll to point to the correct location and save applicationHost.config

4. Run iisreset /noforce

After this your EMS will be able to start successfully and connect to remote PowerShell without problem.

Enjoy.