All Answers

I’m afraid that I don’t have any real idea as to what could be causing that to happen (seeing as I’m not able to reproduce the issue over here with a new/clean installation of WSEE on Windows Server 2022).

About all I can tell you to do/try is to have a look in the server’s ‘Logs’ folder to see if you can find a log file (such as Dashboard.log, etc.) that gives you some indication of what’s causing the crashes to happen. You can find the ‘Logs’ folder in the following location on your Essentials server:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\Logs

If you sort the folder by date modified, the most recent log files will appear at the top of the folder. You can then open them up one-by-one (in any text reader, such as Notepad, etc.) and look though them (with the newest entries being located at the very bottom of the log file).

Other than that, you can also try opening the Event Viewer applet on your server, to see if it happens to show any logged info as to what might be causing the crashes (by looking under Windows Logs -> Applications, etc.).

Best of luck!

I’m afraid that’s not something we offer.

That being said… We do have a “WSEE Installer” available that can be used to quickly (and easily) add the Windows Server Essentials Experience (WSEE) to an existing installation of Windows Server 2019/2022. For all of the details see:

Installing Windows Server Essentials Experience On Windows Server 2019 / 2022 / vNext

Please try shutting down your server, waiting a minute or two, and then turning it back on again. Doing that “should” resolve the issue for you.

Alas, I’m afraid that you’re completely outta my league on this one seeing as I’ve never attempted something like that before.

I doubt that you’ll get any outside help on such a question here… You’re probably much better off just omitting the reference to WSE RemoteApp from the question (i.e. just make it more generic) and then posting it over in Microsoft’s Windows Server Essentials support forum instead.

Best of luck!

Alas, I’m afraid that I’m not currently able to replicate this one over here. Both the Android and the iOS versions of Microsoft’s Work Folders mobile app (as well as the native Work Folders applet on Windows PCs) seem to be working just fine for me.

Have you tried restarting the mobile device just to see if that happens to shake things loose for you? Are you sure that the mobile app is still using the correct Work Folders URL that’s specific/correct for the Anywhere Access setup on your Essentials server (as shown here)?

I’m not quite sure that I’m following you on this one seeing as our WSE RemoteApp product has always had automatic update capability built into it since its inception.

Whenever an update is available for WSE RemoteApp, a health alert will be automatically generated (and optionally emailed to you) via the Essentials server’s built-in Health Report Add-In feature. Additionally, you will receive an alert when opening the server Dashboard, and all of the add-in’s About dialog boxes will inform you of the update being available as well.

It is then left up to you (the server administrator) to decide if you want to go ahead and manually download and install the update from there (i.e. the updates themselves are never force installed onto the server automatically – for obvious reasons).

Other than that, if you’re asking if there’s a way to have WSE RemoteApp alert you when an update to the program that you’ve published as a RemoteApp program becomes available, then the answer to that question would be no. Something like that would (and should) always be left up to the manufacturer of the program itself.

Alas, I’m afraid that I just don’t do domain migrations, and so I’m not very familiar with them (i.e. I’m definitely not the best source for advice on performing domain migrations with Essentials-based servers). I always suggest that folks start over with a brand new/clean instance of Windows Server 2019/2022 Standard, with no other server roles, features, or applications installed, for the best results.

That being said, I’ll do my best to try and answer your questions…

First off, if your 2022 server is currently joined to another domain (i.e. to your older 2016 server), then the “Windows Server Essentials Configuration” wizard will indeed see/recognize that, and configure Windows Server Essentials as a member server within the existing domain (as opposed to its default installation method of just making the Windows Server Essentials server the primary domain controller). That’s how Microsoft wrote the wizard to work, and so there’s nothing much I can do about that I’m afraid.

1) Yes, that’s certainly how I’d approach it (since you don’t want the new Essentials server to be a member server of the old/existing Essentials server as I mentioned above). It’s probably far better to just follow the domain migration guidance that Microsoft provides over here instead (see also).

2) Since the Windows Server Essentials Client Connector software, that’s already installed on your clients, will be exactly the same (i.e. since it’s taken straight from 2016), there’s no need to completely uninstall it from your clients I don’t believe. However, you will need to reconnect the clients back to the domain by re-installing the connector software on them once again (via http://<ServerName>/connect). See: To connect a client computer to the server

3) Since the clients are already joined to the domain (as opposed to being connected using Microsoft’s SkipDomainJoin connection method), you’ll first need to implement the SkipDomainJoin registry setting on them in order to prevent your user’s existing profiles from being overwritten/trashed. Simply add the SkipDomainJoin registry entry to the client, re-run the client connector software on the client, and then remove the SkipDomainJoin registry settings afterwards (doing that will stop the clients from being re-joined to the domain again and messing up the existing user profile).

Best of luck!

I have just emailed you over the download details for the WSEE Installer. If you don’t receive them, then please do let me know.

Thanks!

I’m not seeing any issues over here with all of the latest Windows Updates installed on Windows Server 2019 as far as the Windows Server Essentials Management Service (WseMgmtSvc) not being able to start goes. Also, no one else is writing in with a similar issue at this time. Thus, it sounds like something more specific to your server install/hardware that’s going on there.

Have you tried looking in the server’s Logs folder just to see if any additional information is being logged in there that might help you track down what’s causing the issue? You can find the server’s Logs folder located here:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\Logs

If you sort the folder by date modified, then the most recently modified log files will appear up at the top of the folder. You can them open them up in Notepad, and scroll down to the bottom, in order to see the most recent entries within the log file.

Additionally, you might try looking in the server’s Event Viewer applet (within the Windows Logs -> Application and Windows Logs -> System log files) just to see if anything shows up there as well.

BTW, if that service is failing to start, then the items you’ve mentioned will indeed be missing from the server Dashboard. The server Dashboard will also most likely be really slow to start as well.

Other than that… About all I can suggest is for you to restore the server from a recent backup where things were last working properly (you do have the Essentials server backup feature enabled now don’t you?). For more info see:

Set up or customize server backup

Manage Server Backup in Windows Server Essentials

Restore or repair your server running Windows Server Essentials

How to backup and restore your Windows Server Essentials 2016

Windows Server Essentials Experience is NOT compatible with Exchange Server. Installing Exchange Server on an Essentials server will completely hose the server’s IIS configuration, etc., and is most definitely the cause of the issue that you’re now experiencing.

Microsoft does support running Exchange Server on a completely separate member server that is joined to your existing Windows Server Essentials domain, but it is NOT supported to install Exchange Server directly on your existing Essentials server. For more info on that see:

Integrate an On-Premises Exchange Server with Windows Server Essentials

Install Exchange 2016 on WSE 2016

You’ll most likely need to completely start over from scratch (or restore the server from a backup prior to when you first installed Exchange Server onto it) seeing as I don’t believe that you’ll be able to manually unroll all of the changes/problems that result from installing Exchange on the Essentials server.

Is this happening on a Windows 11 client computer (RTM or Insider Preview)? I’ve seen one other report of this so far, which was on Windows 11, and so I’m thinking that there’s an issue going on when WSE RemoteApp’s client-side installer attempts to set permissions on the specified file/folder. I’ll need to look into that.

In the mean time, you should be able to resolve the issue by right-clicking on the “C:\Program Files\Windows Server\Bin\LaunchPad” folder (on the Windows 11 client computer), going to the “Security” tab, and making sure that the “Users” account has been granted full control of the folder.

Personally, you’re MUCH better off just starting over from scratch with a brand new/clean Windows Server installation, or by restoring from backup back to a point in time before you very first installed WSEE onto your server.

That being said… You can indeed uninstall WSEE from your server by doing the following (make sure that you have a working backup of your server before doing so just in case you need to get back to where you are now if something happens to go wrong during the uninstall process):

1. Locate and then run the following program/cleanup wizard on your server:

C:\Windows\System32\EssentialsRoleCleanupWizard.exe

2. Open the Control Panel’s “Programs and Features” applet on your server.

3. Locate and then select the existing “Windows Server Essentials Experience” program, click on the “Change” button, and then uninstall it from the wizard that appears.