Hi, I've recently taken over for a sysadmin who has left behind a complete mess so I'm hoping for guidance. My foremost problem is that only logged in as administrator can I access the management console or Exchange shell, when I goto Tools to try and run the RBAC editor I get "IE cannot display page" so I just log on as administrator generally. Other times, I can't get into the management conole at all with the message "Exchange cannot be found in AD" or somethign to that effect, since it's not happening now I can't give verbatim message. Which I presume this has somethign to do with the ADDS service being stopped and it doesnt allow me to start it. Also, when I look at properties of a user in ADUC I don't see any Exchange tabs, I presume this has something to do with the schema and/or domain/forest functional level just not sure. Geez, I know it's a lot however, any help would be greatly appreciated.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 A few specific suggestions: - Don't lump a whole bunch of questions into a single paragraph. - Always disclose your version, service pack and rollup hotfix level of Exchange because it usually really does matter. - Always include the full text of any message or event log entry to which you refer. - Never post "or something to that effect" or else the answers you get will be "or something to that effect". - If you don't get a message any more then it's probably not important any more.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

I'm guessing he's dealing with E2K10 because of the reference to RBAC. As for SP and RU level, it would take powers of observation greater than mine to determine that. It's probably safe to deduce that the OP is more familiar with E2K3 since he (?) expects to find Exchange tabs in user properties. ----------------- Also, when I look at properties of a user in ADUC I don't see any Exchange tabs Since E2K7, those tabs are no longer there. Everything you would manage there is now managed in the EMC (or EMS... or ECP if E2K10). Which I presume this has somethign to do with the ADDS service being stopped I don't think there is such a service running on Exchange (AD Topology Service maybe?) but you can try this in the EMS: Test-ServiceHealth That will tell you if any necessary services are not running

Thanks sorry for the confusion. Yes, the last version of Exchange I managed or migrated is E2k3 so good to know that there are no longer Exchange tabs in user properties in ADUC. And when I said ADDS I meant active directory directory services which is a service on the server that also houses Exchange which is stopped and I cannto start and I'm not sure if this is affecting Exchange adversly or not.

And when I said ADDS I meant active directory directory services which is a service on the server that also houses Exchange Do you mean these services? http://www.leedesmond.com/images/lh-apr07ctp/w2k8-dcpromoAfter-Roles.png I was thinking of these kinds of services: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee423542.aspx Anyway, could you please provide the clarifications Ed mentioned above and with those clarifications someone may be able to help out. Also, could you run the ExBPA (Best Practice Analyzer) which is in the EMC Tool box - the Health Check should spell out any major problems. Besides the Event Viewer, that's a good place to start. BTW, what did the Test-ServiceHealth cmdlet show (you run this in the EMS)?

Hi ServerWrangler, Please follow Le’s suggestion to do a health check for the Exchange Server and check the Event Viewer. In addition to Le, I also want to clarify what is error you got when you try to start “Active Directory Domain Services” manually? Please help us to collect more information, with this information, we can help you more efficiently. Thanks, EvanPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.