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Installing Exchange Server 2013 CU21 requisites on Windows Server 2012 R2

We are going to install Exchange 2013 CU21 ( combination of Mailbox and Client Access  role) on a single box.

Install the Unified Communications Managed API 4.0 Runtime, and the Visual C++ 2013 redistributable package.

Install the required features using:

Install-WindowsFeature AS-HTTP-Activation, Desktop-Experience, NET-Framework-45-Features, RPC-over-HTTP-proxy, RSAT-Clustering, Web-Mgmt-Console, WAS-Process-Model, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Digest-Auth, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Dyn-Compression, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Http-Redirect, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console, Web-Metabase, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Mgmt-Service, Web-Net-Ext45, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Server, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Static-Content, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-WMI, Windows-Identity-Foundation, RSAT-Clustering-CmdInterface, RSAT-ADDS

Make sure you check for updates after you install these as typically the UCM API has some post-updates.

If you are installing Exchange Server in the AD forest for the first time run the following Exchange 2013 setup command to prepare Active Directory:

Convert Windows Server 2016/2019 from EVAL to FULL

Most evaluation versions can be converted to full retail versions, but the method varies slightly depending on the edition. Before you attempt to convert the version, verify that your server is actually running an evaluation version.

For releases of Windows Server 2016 prior to 14393.0.161119-1705.RS1_REFRESH, you can only perform this conversion from evaluation to retail with Windows Server 2016 that has been installed by using the Desktop Experience option (not the Server Core option). Starting with version 14393.0.161119-1705.RS1_REFRESH and later releases, you can convert evaluation editions to retail regardless of the installation option used.

To confirm you are running evaluation version, use:

DISM /online /Get-CurrentEdition

Next we need to figure out what version we can convert into using:

DISM /online /Get-TargetEditions

We can now convert using:

DISM /online /Set-Edition:[TargetEdition] `
/ProductKey:[KMS_KEY] /AcceptEula

If you need to convert to other editions, use the correct keys below.

Windows Server 2012 R2 Server Standard: D2N9P-3P6X9-2R39C-7RTCD-MDVJX
Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter: W3GGN-FT8W3-Y4M27-J84CP-Q3VJ9
Windows Server 2016 Datacenter: CB7KF-BWN84-R7R2Y-793K2-8XDDG
Windows Server 2016 Standard: WC2BQ-8NRM3-FDDYY-2BFGV-KHKQY
Windows Server 2019 Datacenter: WMDGN-G9PQG-XVVXX-R3X43-63DFG
Windows Server 2019 Standard: N69G4-B89J2-4G8F4-WWYCC-J464C

I have observed that it can take up to a few hours for this process to complete (TiWorker.exe taking up lots of CPU during this task) in Server 2016. It was observed that the process was much quicker in Server 2012 R2.