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Exchange | Exchange Server | Management
The administration and maintenance of Microsoft Exchange Server to ensure secure, reliable, and efficient email and collaboration services across an organization.
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Hi Roger Sinsel,
Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum!
Have a good day and I hope you're doing well!
Thank you for providing the detailed logs. I understand how disruptive an interrupted Exchange upgrade can be, especially during the “Mailbox Permissions Configuration” phase. Based on your logs and Microsoft’s documentation, the upgrade appears to fail because setup can’t use the temporary working path under C:\Windows\Temp\ExchangeSetup and then can’t register the tracing provider. The steps below address those conditions and the most common environmental causes.
1. Clean up and recreate the temporary folder:
rd /s /q "C:\Windows\Temp\ExchangeSetup"
mkdir "C:\Windows\Temp\ExchangeSetup\Working\OleConverter"
icacls "C:\Windows\Temp" /grant "Administrators:(OI)(CI)F" /grant "SYSTEM:F" /T
For details on using the icacls command to manage permissions, see Microsoft’s guidance: icacls – Microsoft Learn
Exchange Setup copies working files to %WinDir%\Temp\ExchangeSetup. Corrupted, locked, or non-writable content here often triggers directory-related and tracing-provider errors.
2. Verify system TEMP/TMP environment variables
- Check the machine-level variables (these are used by setup and services):
[System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("TEMP", "Machine")
[System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("TMP", "Machine")
- If either points to a redirected or non-writable location (e.g., a network path or a locked profile path), set them to a local writable directory and then sign out/restart:
setx TEMP "C:\Windows\Temp" /M
setx TMP "C:\Windows\Temp" /M
- Exchange Setup must write to a local drive. Non-local or non-writable TEMP/TMP locations commonly cause access errors during role installation.
3. Extract setup locally and run from a short path:
- Do not run setup directly from an ISO or a network share. Extract to a local folder first:
Setup.exe /Extract:C:\ExchangeSetup
cd C:\ExchangeSetup
- You can then run setup from that extracted directory using the command in step 4. Microsoft’s install guidance for command-line usage is here: Install Mailbox Role – Microsoft Learn
4. Run the upgrade with the correct privileges and AD preparation:
- Open Command Prompt as Administrator. Ensure the account is in Schema Admins, Enterprise Admins, and Domain Admins. For delegated or reduced-privilege scenarios, see Microsoft’s delegated installations guidance: Delegate Installations – Microsoft Learn
- Before running the upgrade, confirm Active Directory and domains are prepared as documented here: Prepare Active Directory and Domains – Microsoft Learn
- Run the upgrade from the extracted folder:
Setup.exe /Mode:Upgrade /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms_DiagnosticDataON
- If you typically start setup from PowerShell, be aware of known issues and the recommended approach here: Exchange 2019 Setup Does Not Run Correctly if Started from PowerShell – Microsoft Learn
5. If errors persist (e.g., HRESULT 0x8004100E or WMI repository corruption), repair WMI
- Verify and repair the WMI repository from an elevated Command Prompt:
winmgmt /verifyrepository
winmgmt /salvagerepository
- For more on the winmgmt command, see Microsoft’s guidance: winmgmt – Win32 apps | Microsoft Learn
- Recompile MOF files if present:
cd \windows\system32\wbem
for /f %s in ('dir /b *.mof *.mfl') do mofcomp %s
- For details on recompiling WMI MOFs, see Microsoft’s community discussion: WMI: Recompiling WMI MOFs | Microsoft Community Hub
- Restart the machine, retry the upgrade, and verify success using Microsoft’s post-install checklist (including log checks and service status): Verify an Exchange Installation – Microsoft Learn
In short, the failure is consistent with Exchange Setup being unable to use the temporary working path and then failing to register the tracing provider due to access limitations. Cleaning and re-permissioning the temp area, ensuring TEMP/TMP point to a local writable path, extracting setup to a local short folder, and running the upgrade as an administrator after confirming AD preparation usually resolves this. This scenario is documented by Microsoft and does not affect your Exchange data or your Active Directory structure. Once these steps are applied, the upgrade should complete smoothly.
I hope this helps and clarifies at least part of your issue. If you have any additional concerns or questions, or if I misunderstood anything or something is unclear, feel free to let me know.
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