Managing Exchange 2007 SP2 from Windows 7

As many of you already know it isn’t supported to install the Exchange 2007 SP2 management tools on Windows 7. So your alternatives is really to use Windows Vista/XP, dedicate an Exchange 2007 management server or simply remote the Exchange servers using remote desktop.

But there’s one more which in fact works very well. You can just install the Exchange 2007 SP2 Management tools in the virtual Windows XP Mode machine in Windows 7. When you have done so, it’s just a matter of launching the virtual application via the Start menu and you have a nice E2K7 EMC in Windows 7 as shown below.

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Update

Since I received a few comments to this post from individuals that mentions they have it working, I want to stress out that running the Exchange 2007 SP2 Management tools on Windows 7 isn’t supported nor possible. It may be that Exchange 2007 SP1 doesn’t have this blocker, but when you try to install the Exchange 2007 SP2 bits, you get the following error:

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In addition the TechNet documentation specifically states the following:

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Direct link here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee532086.aspx

Update 2

Several readers of this post asked why Exchange 2007 SP2 isn’t supported in Windows 7 (or Windows Server 2008 R2 for that matter). Well one of the reasons is that the Exchange 2007 product were developed before Windows 7 and Window Server 2008 R2 were in a state where it made sense to test Exchange 2007 with these versions. So the Exchange Product group made a decision to focus their efforts on Exchange 2010 which as most of you probably already know does support Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

I’m sure the Exchange Product group would love to support these OS versions, but there are only so many resources available. Personally, I like the fact that they focused on Exchange 2010 since so many organizations will make the switch directly from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010.

Cheers,

Henrik Walther
Technology Architect/Writer
MCM: Exchange 2007 | MVP: Exchange Architecture

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