Recently, I was in the process of installing the Microsoft Dynamics 2011 Email Router on a new build Windows Server 2008 R2 system, when I got this error. What the…. This isn’t the Exchange Server….

The install started out just fine. Selected install locations, yada yada, no issues. However, when the install got to the System Checks portion, this error popped up:

Uh… Microsoft, what? I don’t need an email program installed….

When I clicked OK, it looked like the Exchange check failed.

Okay, maybe I should click on Details and see if there’s anything helpful.

….Okay, not as helpful as I’d hoped.

Fortunately, Microsoft is well aware of this issue, and have posted a Knowledge Base article (kb951401) on this very issue.

Apparently, this error is because starting with Exchange 2007, the Messaging API (that’s the MAPI) client libraries and the Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) are no longer packaged with Exchange.

However, here’s the tricky part – the MAPI and CDO 1.2.1 should be installed on the server running the CRM 2011 Email Router, not the Exchange server. And in addition, if you are running Microsoft Outlook on the same server running the Email Router, you don’t need these two components to be installed separately.

Once I installed the Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Client and Collaboration Data Objects 1.2.1 (you can download them from Microsoft’s website here), I re-ran the CRM Email Router installation, and….

Ah, that’s what I needed to see!