At this time we have decided to hold off upgrading our servers and Exchange untill Windows Server 2016 is made available.  My question is whethter or not Exchange Server 2016 will be supported on Windows Server 2016 at release or shortly thereafter (possibly through a CU) and if I must wait how long a wait am I in for?

Thanks in advance,

Bob Hessenauer

• Moved by Jason Johnston [MSFT]Microsoft employee Wednesday, August 26, 2015 11:56 AM Not a development question.

Hi Bob,

Currently, the Windows Server 2016 is not released. But the information is always being released, so keep an eye out for an announcement of a release date for Server 2016. We can follow the Windows Server blog for any updates:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/

Exchange server 2016 has been released and the Supported operating systems for Exchange 2016 are:

Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter

Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719(v=exchg.160).aspx

Re

Winnie,

Thanks for the input, but while Win Server 2016 is not yet released I would sincerely hope that it is supported by Exchange 2016 at release time - what with all the lead time to wait for the WinServer after Exchange's release.  I wanted to make a clean break and set up my environment clean as I run WSE 2012 R2 right now with Exchange 2013 CU9, but Exchange created a ton of "extra" user accounts that I don't know if I need or can delete and as a result I am SEVVERELY (as in no more than 6 actual Users) Limited as to the number of users I can have in my organization before I hit the wall and have to move to the Windows Standard with WSE Experience Role. Right now I cannot even consider running Exchange 2016 and migrating over from my existing Exchange server because I do not have any open user slots left if they are needed.

Hope this helps, and I shall be watching for a CU to address 2016 compatibility as we get closer to release.

Bob Hessenauer

Winnie is incorrect - Exchange 2016 has not been released - it is at release candidate stage. The system requirements are likely to change.

Simon.

Winnie is incorrect - Exchange 2016 has not been released - it is at release candidate stage. The system requirements are likely to change.

aLL,

Right now my environment is set up to use https://mail.constco.com for all entries (with /owa or /ecp appended as appropriate, and autodiscover.contsco.com for the autodiscover service) The new docs show consistent mail.contsco.com except for ECO and OWA where it is owa.contsco.com/owa or /ecp and autodiscover is a dns entry.  I also wanted to know if the set-clientaccessserver command is still necessary for the internal auotdiscover service. Just trying to get the configuration right before implementation as I only want to have to do this once and am setting everything up (Win Server 2016 with WSE 2016 as the PDC) clean on solid server-class hardware.

Just making sure

BOb Hessenauer