Carl Gray (“Oxford SBS Guy”) has a very good, step by step blog on installing Exchange 2010 SP3 on SBS2011, including screen shots. So, there’s no need for me to replicate what he has already posted.
However, there are two critical steps he did not include:
- Before you start the SP3 upgrade, please go into Services and stop the Windows SBS Manager service.
- Please make sure that you DO NOT have Windows Management Framework (WMF) 3.0 installed on the server. Look for KB2506143. You will need to uninstall this patch and then reboot the server before you install the SP3 upgrade.
Susan Bradley has previously posted on both of these issues (see Stop SBS Manager and Uninstall WMF 3.0)
I also offer some additional advice to add to his process, which you may find helpful:
- When downloading the Exchange2010-SP3-x64.exe file, put it into an empty temp folder (say ..\Downloads\E2010SP3temp). Then when you double click on the .exe to extract all the files, it will extract the files to this same temp folder. Once the SP3 upgrade is completed, all you need to do for cleanup is to delete this one temp folder.
- I highly recommend that you make sure that you have a full, recent backup of your server before you start.
- I also recommend that you reboot the server BEFORE starting the upgrade process.
- If you are installing SP3 remotely (using RWA), be aware that you will lose your remote connection during this process. DO NOT PANIC. The SP3 upgrade will stop the RDP/Gateway service. Just be patient. Give the upgrade about 30-40 minutes to complete. Eventually you will be able to connect back in via RWA, and when you do, you should find that the upgrade has completed.
- If SP3 has been installed successfully, I would suggest rebooting the server again. It doesn’t hurt, and in some cases, it may help!
- Finally, Carl says to check that the version of Exchange is correct. Here is how I perform that step:
- Open up Exchange Management Shell
- Type the following: get-exchangeserver | fl name,edition,admindisplayversion
- The build number for Exchange 2010 SP3 is: 14.3.123.4
thankyou