TechTips - Exchange Setup Keeps Saying "A Restart from a Previous Installation is Pending"

I was trying to install Exchange 2007 the other day to setup a test email server to test out some things with Exchange and SharePoint 2007 when I ran into a weird problem I had never seen before. I kept getting an error message saying that "A restart from a previous installation is pending". I tried rebooting the server several times, but the error kept coming up. In this guide I will give you some ideas that I tried in order to resolve this issue, hopefully one of them works to get you past this error.

First thing I tried was to make sure that Exchange 2007 had been completely removed from the server. For this to be true you need to not only uninstall Exchange 2007 but also remove the Exchange 2007 Server Role from the server it was installed on. It is best to remove the server role before you uninstall Exchange 2007, to do this follow these steps:

Click Start

Click Control Panel

Double-Click Add Remove Programs

Select Microsoft Exchange Server

Click Remove (if you click change it won't allow you to remove the server role, you can only add a role)

In the wizard choose Exchange Maintenance Mode

Click Next

Select Server Role Selection Page

Clear the checkbox of whatever server roles you want to remove (exchange)

Click Next

Click Uninstall (after check completes)

Click Finish

Now your server role should be removed for the Exchange 2007 Server and now you can uninstall the product and then reinstall Exchange 2007, hopefully fixing the issue you were having with the error "A restart from a previous installation is pending".

Another quicker possible fix is to try to edit the registry key that the installer for Exchange 2007 looks at while installing. Sometimes deleting the keys can resolve the issue with the "A restart from a previous installation is pending".

The first key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations

The second key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Updates\UpdateExeVolatile

To delete these keys follow these steps:

Click Start

Click Run

Type regedit

Expand the registry to the first key

Right click on the key and select Delete

Expand the registry to the second key

Right click on the key and select Delete

Reboot your server

Re-run the setup (it should work)

There are the two quick and easy fixes for the error in Exchange 2007 when it keeps prompting you "A restart from a previous installation is pending". Hopefully one of these fixes works for you, the first fix worked for my setup, I think the server role was causing an issue with my installation. Once I made sure that it had been removed and totally uninstalled Exchange 2007 it let me reinstall with no problems. The registry fixes might also work for you, I didn't want to risk messing with the registry but it shouldn't cause you any problems if you want to try them as well if the first fix doesn't work.