There was a request to fix the issue below when installing Exchange 2013 CU23. When running setup the error received was «Installing Exchange Error — Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra isn’t installed«.
If you look closely at the image below, you might be able to state the answer in advance…
Alternative Reality
As a side note. If you are installing Exchange 2016 onto Windows Server 2016 and receive this error, please ensure that you are using the latest CU. Support for this scenario was not present with the RTM build of Exchange 2016 and was added with CU3.
However, that is not the scenario shown above and is include to help those in that specific scenario that may land on this page.
Nul Points
Back to the original scenario, Exchange 2013 CU23 installing on to Windows Server 2016. The answer is — Negative Ghostrider, the pattern is full.
In short no, this can not be fixed. The clue which was mentioned in the image above is the desktop. It is Windows Server 2016.
Exchange 2013 is NOT supported on Windows Server 2016, so it would be expected to run into errors. You can review the Exchange support matrix to review the supported combinations.
The OS component Exchange 2013 is looking for is simply not present in Windows Server 2016. This is shown below:
Compare this to an Exchange 2013 server running on Windows Server 2012 R2. The expected OS component is present.
Cheers,
Rhoderick
Installing Exchange 2016 on Windows Server 2016 the basics.
After Exchange 2016 came out I wanted to try it out, so I already downloaded the ISO. Then I had no more time to install Exchange 2016 and the installation waited longer than expected.
The Exchange readiness indicated that the Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra feature was not installed.
So I opened PowerShell and ran:
Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra, Server-Gui-Shell -restartBut unfortunately I got the following error message:
“Install-WindowsFeature : ArgumentNotValid: The role, role service, or feature name is not valid:
‘Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra’. The name was not found.”
The first thing I did was a Google Search. Fortunately, or unfortunately I found the “solution” very quickly.
Unfortunately, Exchange 2013 will not be supported on Windows Server 2016 at all. Exchange 2016 will be supported on Windows Server 2016 at GA, however Exchange 2016 it is not guaranteed to work on TP5. Sorry for the inconvenience.
So, I’m just going to keep this short. The standard ISO of Exchange does not offer what newer CUs do offer. It is best to download and install the latest CU directly. You can find the CU on technet.
Go to the download page directly here.
See below. This time Exchange got through the readiness check.
Recap
I have updated the post in response to feedback. The link to the Exchange CU3 was a direct link. Meanwhile, there is a CU9 out. From now on the link will go to the CU website.
Do you have any more feedback or additions to this post? Please leave a comment.
For a complete guide to install Exchange 2016 you can follow the tutorial from Technet.
Bas Wijdenes
My name is Bas Wijdenes and I work as a PowerShell DevOps Engineer. In my spare time I write about interesting stuff that I encounter during my work.
View all posts by Bas Wijdenes
I was trying to install Exchange 2013 SP1 on a freshly installed Windows 2016 server when I received an error running the Exchange 2013 readiness checks.
Error:
The Windows component Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra isn’t installed on this computer and needs to be installed before Exchange Setup can begin.
For more information, visit: http://technet.microsoft.com/library(EXCHG.150)/ms.exch.setupreadiness.ServerGuiMgmtInfraNotInstalled.aspx
Exchange 2013 readiness error
When clicking on the link for more information I received the helpful information:
“Sorry, but we haven’t added content for this Exchange 2013 readiness check yet”.
Exchange readiness error’s hyperlink page shows there is no content.
After double checking everything, I found out Microsoft Exchange 2013 is not supported on Windows Server 2016. Windows Server 2016 only supports Microsoft Exchange 2016 CU3 (and presumably later).
Workaround
Unfortunately, there are only two options. Downgrade your Windows 2016 licence to Windows 2012 R2, as I did, or go for Exchange 2016 CU3.
I hope this post helps someone find a quick answer to the issue rather than trawling the internet for hours. Why can’t the installer just tell you that it is not compatible!
Let me know if there are any other workarounds or if this helped you in the comments below,
Check out other Exchange 2013 fixes here
Thanks
Ian
Skip to content
Today I was installing Microsoft Exchange 2016 on a new Windows Server 2016 purely for lab and education purposes. The Windows Installation was finished all Windows Updates were installed and now it was time to start the Microsoft Exchange installation! I had downloaded the installation media some time ago from the Microsoft website (this is where the mistake began), please read further for the explanation.
Exchange 2016 – Readiness Checks Error
After starting the setup wizard and the Readiness Checks the following error appeared:
Error: The Windows component Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra isn’t installed on this computer and needs to be installed before Exchange Setup can begin.
Exchange 2016 – Running PowerShell Commands
So I tried installing the required components with the following PowerShell command, just as requested by the Readiness Checks page:
### PowerShell installation command
Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra, Server-Gui-Shell -RestartThis is the result of running this PowerShell command-let on the Windows Server 2016 machine. The error states “The role, role service, or feature name is not valid“.
Apparently “Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra” isn’t something you can install on Windows Server 2016 machine…
Solution to the installation problem
So after some thinking, I realized that the Exchange 2016 application was released much earlier than the Windows Server 2016 operating system… After some searching, I found the latest “Exchange 2016 CU6 release” on the Microsoft.com website.
It appears that every Cumulative Update (CU) is released in the form of a new ISO file which is also the installation media and update media. After downloading the CU6 iso and running the installation everything was working without any problems.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Server Core was introduced in Windows Server 2008 but was confusing to many administrators. This was mainly because that you, as an administrator, were restricted to a command line and needed to know the commands for doing your tasks.
One of the main problems with it was that if you installed your server as a Server Core, you would need to reinstall it if you want the graphical user interface (GUI).
This changed in Windows Server 2012. It was now possible to install your server with a GUI and remove the GUI once you’ve set everything up.
It was also possible to install your server as a Server Core and then add the GUI by just entering a simple Powershell command.
In this blog post, I will explain how to install the GUI for a Windows Server Core installation or remove the GUI if you have Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2.
Enter this command into a Powershell prompt, running as Administrator.
Then run:
Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell, Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra
Once installed, you need to restart the server. Use this command:
If you do not have Internet connectivity, the installation will hang at 68% and, after a while, displays an error message to you:
Install-WindowsFeature: The request to add or remove features on the specified server failed.
This means that the source files for the GUI installation cannot be located.
To solve the error, follow these steps:
Start by creating a mount directory (i.e C:\Mount), by opening a command prompt:
Get the index number of the WIM file for the GUI (if Windows Server 2012 R2 media is on D:). Since all of the Windows Server 2012 R2 installations are stored in the same *.wim, we need to specify what version we want to mount. In this case, we’ll be using the Datacenter version with GUI, which is Index #4
dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:d:\sources\install.wim
Mount the WIM file:
dism /mount-wim /wimfile: d:\sources\install.wim /Index:3 /mountdir:C:\Mount\ /readonly
Install and specify the source:
Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell, Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra -Source C:\Mount\Windows\SXS
Once installed, you need to restart the server. Use this command:
How to remove the GUI from a full installation, using the GUI:
Open Server Manager, open the Manage menu and go to Remove Roles and Features
Press Next until you reach the Features page
There are two different features that you can choose:
- Graphical Management Tools and Infrastructure (server-GUI-mgmt-infra) basically provides Powershell, MMC, and Server Manager.
- Adding the Server Graphical Shell (server-GUI-shell) will add the rest of the GUI experience. This feature is dependent on the first, so you can’t just add this one.
Note that if you remove Graphical Management Tools and Infrastructure, you will also remove Server Graphical Shell.
Once deselecting one of the features, you will get a popup. Here, press Remove Features.
The User Interfaces and Infrastructure feature should now be deselected. Proceed by pressing Next.
The final step is to confirm the removal process. Press Remove and select Restart the destination server automatically if required.
Removing the GUI from a full installation, using Powershell:
Enter this command:
Uninstall-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Shell, Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra
References
- Microsoft Docs – What is Server Core?
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