Celebrating 10 Years as a Microsoft MVP!

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Back from my vacation, I am thrilled to share that I have been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for the 10th consecutive year. In addition to being recognized as an expert within Teams, I am have also been recognized as an expert with Microsoft Copilot. This means a lot to me.  Being an MVP has been an incredibly rewarding journey, both personally and professionally. It has provided me with countless opportunities to grow, learn, and connect with like-minded professionals who share a passion for technology and innovation.  The award is not just a title; it's a testament to the hard work, dedication, and contributions to the tech community. It's a privilege to be part of such an esteemed group of individuals who share the same love for technology, and sharing their knowledge about it.  As I reflect on the past decade, I am thankful for the experiences and knowledge I've gained. This recognition motivates me to continue sharing my expertise, mentor

Installation error when upgrading Exchange 2010 to SP1

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I encountered a strange issue when I upgraded an Exchange 2010 installation just the other day. I could not find any technet articles or other blog posts with anything similar to my error. So I thought I'd share my error and solution.

The installation is a rather small one, so I have all the roles co-located on one server.

First of all, I was not able to upgrade using GUI at all. It told me I had to select components, even though all the components were already selected. It just gave me a nonsense error message. It was only after disabling the UMserver (as suggested by this document: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff630921.aspx) I was able to run the wizard.

Unfortunately I was still not able to install the service pack from the GUI. I then tried to run the setup.com /m:upgrade /installwindowsfeature from command prompt. The setup still feiled. When studying the error setup logs (great logging of the setup by the way) I noticed it was complaining about not being able to read the language-packages. And this is where I was puzzeled: The setup was looking for the languagepack on the desktop of my administrator account, not in the setupdirectory I was running setup from.

My simple solution to the problem was this: Copy all the language folders to the desktop. I rebooted the Exchange server (A failed install will need to be rebooted before running setup again) and ran setup.com again. And this time it worked just fine.

Anyone with a good explanation on the placements of the language files? Please drop me a note in the comments section ;)