SBS 2011 migration

In the middle of May 2012 I needed to migrate a Windows SBS 2003 Server to SBS 2011 for one of our clients. The customer is only using Microsoft Exchange, so no Sharepoint involved. Equipped with a document from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=14570), the initial job was completed without any major issues. We just need to migrate the mailboxes and shared folders.


Three days after, I went to Exchange Management Console to start the mailbox migration process then I found out that it didn't work anymore. We only have two weeks to complete the migration before the old server stop working (Microsoft only allow 21 days to complete the migration process). The error that I got is the one that complains about Kerberos authentication and to verify that the WS-Management service is running as you can see below.

The following error occured while attempting to connect to the specified Exchange Server <Server>

The attempt to connect to http://<server>/PowerShell using 'Kerberos' authentication failed. Connecting to remote server failed with the following error message: The connection to the specified remote host was refused. Verify that the WE-Management service is running on the remote host and configured to listen for request on the correct port and HTTP URL. 

I don't remember I have changed anything prior. With the time pressure, I went to my best friend Google to ask for help. All the information I could find is about checking the Kerbauth module setting in IIS and also to configure the WinRM Service. I tried all those options and even tried to recreate the PowerShell Virtual Directory with no success.


On my third day after the issue found, I finally found an answer after I compared my working IIS configuration file from backup with the one that is not working. The culprit was the configuration on the applicationHost.config file. I was not aware that someone from a printer company installed a 32-bit application which had modified the configuration on that file. What the application changed it as below

and to fix it, you just need to modify the lines to be like this below.

You can change the configuration by manually go into the directory on C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config or you can run these commands below

appcmd set apppool /apppool.name:MyAppPool32bit /enable32BitAppOnWin64:true

          appcmd set apppool /apppool.name:MyAppPool32bit /enable32BitAppOnWin64:false

Note: By default - it is false.

You need to restart your IIS after you changed that configuration by running "iisreset" on your command prompt.

Ahh..life is good again :) - the SBS 2011 migration has now been completed.