As the title sais... When trying to complete Windows Server Essentials configuration it displays "preparing your server" for just a second and then displays the error.

"Configuration encountered some issues."

"Please Click Retry. If the issue still exists please refer to the help link for more troubleshooting steps"

Clicking retry does not help, troubleshooting info does not produce anything helpful. There's nothing in the logs that can correlate to this error. Searching the web also does not produce any helpful results.

Any assistance with this would be much apprec

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/476e391b-cf6c-433b-8034-c75abe4be8c5/postdeployment-configuration-fails-for-windows-server-essentials-r2?forum=2012R2EssentialsPreview

From Leon M: 

The post-config wizard won't let you configure the Essentials Experience role because it's unable to start the 'Windows Server Essentials Management Service' system service. This service is configured to run under the <domain>\ServerAdmin$ account. This account must have 'Log on as a service' rights.

• Go to Group Policy Management
• Edit your policy, such as the 'Default Domain Controllers Policy'
• Go to Computer Configuration \ Windows Settings \ Security Settings \ Local Policies \ User Rights Assignment
• Edit 'Log on as a service' and add 2 accounts: <domain>\ServerAdmin$ and <domain>\MediaAdmin$

The ServerAdmin$ is enough to let the wizard finish the configuration. The MediaAdmin$ is needed for the 'Windows Server Essentials Media Streaming Service'.

• Marked as answer by Justin GuMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Thursday, November 28, 2013 10:24 AM

Are you installing the role on server standard?  If so the above will probably fix it.

I've run into this issue on an existing domain. The Group Policy setting mentioned above looks like it may be part of the issue, however, the ServerAdmin$ account does not exist. I've tried manually creating an account with this name, but no luck.

Setting up a brand new member server and attempting to add the Essentials role still fails. The problem seems to be with the domain, but there is little info anywhere as to what may be causing the problem.

Did you see this ?

The post-config wizard won't let you configure the Essentials Experience role because it's unable to start the 'Windows Server Essentials Management Service' system service. This service is configured to run under the <domain>\ServerAdmin$ account. This account must have 'Log on as a service' rights.

• Go to Group Policy Management
• Edit your policy, such as the 'Default Domain      Controllers Policy'
• Go to Computer Configuration \ Windows Settings \      Security Settings \ Local Policies \ User Rights Assignment
• Edit 'Log on as a service' and add 2 accounts:      <domain>\ServerAdmin$ and <domain>\MediaAdmin$

The ServerAdmin$ is enough to let the wizard finish the configuration. The MediaAdmin$ is needed for the 'Windows Server Essentials Media Streaming Service'.

Hi, Were you able to resolve your issue?  

We have a similar issue where the ServerAdmin$ account does not seem to exist in the domain.  When trying to add the account to the Group Policy setting, it returns "The following accounts could not be validated: <domain name>\ServerAdmin$"

Thanks for posting the solution you found, PetieG. It fixed my issue but I had to do a GPUPDATE (electing to not log off when prompted) after modifying the Default Domain Controllers GPO. I could not find the ServerAdmin$ account in Active Directory either but was able to add the <domain>\ServerAdmin$ account to the "Log on as a Service" policy. This is the Security Log entry that this solution fixes in case anyone is google'ing for a solution.

Log Name:      Security
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing
Date:          4/29/2015 12:10:29 AM
Event ID:      4625
Task Category: Logon
Level:         Information
Keywords:      Audit Failure
User:          N/A
Computer:      <server>.<domain>.local
Description:      An account failed to log on.

Subject:
 Security ID:  SYSTEM
 Account Name:  <server>$
 Account Domain:  <domain>
 Logon ID:  0x3E7

Logon Type:   5

Account For Which Logon Failed:
 Security ID:  NULL SID
 Account Name:  ServerAdmin$
 Account Domain:  <domain>

Failure Information:
 Failure Reason:  The user has not been granted the requested logon type at this machine.
 Status:   0xC000015B
 Sub Status:  0x0

Process Information:
 Caller Process ID: 0x204
 Caller Process Name: C:\Windows\System32\services.exe

Network Information:
 Workstation Name: <server>
 Source Network Address: -
 Source Port:  -

Detailed Authentication Information:
 Logon Process:  Advapi 
 Authentication Package: Negotiate
 Transited Services: -
 Package Name (NTLM only): -
 Key Length:  0