I have to say that the installation of Exchange Server 2013 SP1 has been an emotional experience so far. I have encountered and fixed approximately 20 errors so far and can still not complete the installation. Errors have ranged from adding a registry key for "Pickup" to toggling IPv6 settings etc. The errors haven't been too bad up to now as they're clearly stated in both the setup log and event viewer. A quick Google search usually gives a few solutions to try and eventually fix the problem.
My recent error has been difficult to find a solution to as the setup log simply says it cannot start the "MSExchangeMailboxAssistants" service. I have tried to start the service manually but the event log doesn't show any messages relating to the stopping of the service.
Error:
Service 'MSExchangeMailboxAssistants' failed to reach status 'Running' on this server.
Platform:
Windows Server 2012 R2
Exchange Server 2013 SP1
Things I've tried:
Starting all Exchange services. All are working fine.
Started MSExchangeMailboxAssistants. Stopped immediately without an errors in event log.
Started MSExchangeMailboxAssistants.exe from command prompt. Wouldn't start as it's a service.
Used cmdlet to increase logging level to "high" and "expert" for all 'MSExchangeMailboxAssistants' services. Started service again and nothing logged.
Installed Operations Manager. Nothing logged.
Manually removed Exchange from server several times and reinstalled. Cleaned out AD, registry, files, IIS etc. No change, same error.
Try installing with and without Malware Protection.
Checked IPv6 is enabled on all NICs.
Checked registry settings for quotes around file name. It does contain the quotes so nothing to fix.
Checked Exchange 2013 SP1 is compatible with Windows Server 2012 R2. The original version wasn't but SP1 is.
I'm all out of ideas now and no error message in the logs to google.
Any help would be appreciated.
