I have been trying to install Exchange 2013 for a while now and have continued to run into the same error during the readiness check.  The readiness check stalls at 40% completed and I receive the following error:

Error:

The following error was generated when "$error.Clear();

if (Get-Service MSDTC*|?{$_.Name -eq 'MSDTC'})

{

Set-Service MSDTC -StartupType Automatic

Start-SetupService -ServiceName MSDTC

}

"was run:"The task failed because a Win32 error occurred: "Access is denied". Could not open the service "MSDTC".".

I have tried to install this both onto Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as Windows Server 2012.  I have installed all of the prerequisites as noted in the Microsoft documentation.  I have tried to install this as the first Exchange server in a brand new AD environment as well as trying to install it into an AD environment where I had already installed Exchange Server 2010 with SP3.  I always receive the same error message during the readiness check when it stalls at 40%.

Any help here would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

Are you using appropriate credentials to run Exchange setup? It is recommended to be logged on as Enterprise Admin when running Exchange server setup

I am signed into the server as the domain administrator.

Can you please try with Enterprise Admin credentials?

I am doing this in a lab environment and I have a single forest and a single domain.  I am signing in as the administrator who is part of the domain admins group which is part of the enterprise admins group.  Is this not sufficient?  Thank you for you help.

I have also made sure that the Windows 2012 server has all available updates applied.  I have tried this by using Cumulative Update 1 for the setup and I still get the same error regarding MSDTC.  Just thought I would share that additional information.

It might be the problem of Exchange media. Download new exchange media and try

• Proposed as answer by Lakhan S Wednesday, June 12, 2013 8:33 AM

Ok, I have figured out what was causing the problem.  It appears to be something with the order that prerequisites are installed prior to installing Exchange 2013.

I had previously following the steps listed in the following page:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354(v=exchg.150).aspx.  I was following the section for installing Windows Server 2012 prerequisites for combined Mailbox and Client Access server roles.

I installed the required Windows components using the PowerShell script and then installed Unified Communications Managed API 4.0, Office 2010 Filter Pack, and finally Office 2010 Filter Pack SP1.  After doing this and applying updates, I tried to install Exchange 2013 CU1 and received the error that I mentioned in my initial post.

I have been able to duplicate this issue when installing Exchange 2013 CU1 into a vanilla environment with Windows Server 2012 as the AD server and Exchange 2013 onto a Windows Server 2012 box.  I also had the issue when trying to install into a coexistence environment with AD being on Server 2008 R2 and another 2008 R2 server hosting Exchange 2010 with SP3.

I decided to change the order of the prerequisite installs and after doing so, I was able to install Exchange 2013 CU1 successfully.

Here are the steps that I went through to successfully install Exchange 2013 CU1.

1. Installed Unified Communications Managed API 4.0
2. Installed Office 2010 Filter Pack
3. Installed Office 2010 Filter Pack SP1
4. Ran Powershell script to install all of the required components (the Technet article says to do this first)
5. Applied all outstanding updates from Microsoft Update
6. Installed Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 1

By following the numbered procedure that I laid out above, I was able to successfully install Exchange 2013 CU1 into both of the lab environments that I described above without any issue.

There was a suggestion that I might have bad media.  I used the same media that I tried originally using my new procedure and it worked fine so it was not the media.

I hope this helps someone out.

Thanks for everyones help.

• Marked as answer by wendy_liuMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Tuesday, June 25, 2013 9:12 AM

Had the exact same issue.  Stuck at 40% then errored out.  Wiped server and installed in the order you listed and was able to install Exchange 2013 successfully.

Confirmed for Exchange 2013 CU3

Confirmed with CU2 also (used to avoid any issues with XP)

Sorry to reply to such an old thread but I came across this and found a much quicker fix. I found https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/279786 and followed the uninstall and reinstall of MSDTC and my Exchange 2013 setup continued successfully.

What I noticed was that the MSDTC service was stopping as soon as it started before the reinstall and afterwards was running until manually stopped.