MinSuitableServer broken in Exchange 2016 CU8?

Question

_{Thursday, March 1, 2018 3:58 PM}

We currently have three domain controllers in each site where we have exchange servers and have been planning to reduce to two.  I found plenty of posts referencing this article which describe adding MinSuitableServer = "X" where X would be 2 in my case to the   <Topology MinimumPrefixMatch = "2" section of the Microsoft.Exchange.Directory.TopologyService.exe.config file.

Unfortunately when testing this on multiple servers running Exchange 2016 CU8, after making the modification and attempting to start the Active Directory Topology Service, the service does not start.  Plenty of MSExchange ADAccess errors are logged to the event log and a Watson report dumped.  Setting MinSuitableServer to 1, 2, or 3 causes the same result.  The service will not start while that line is present in the config file.  As soon as it is removed, the service starts without issue and operations continue as normal.

My assumption is that this no longer works in recent updates.  I'd like to know if anyone else running Exchange 2016 CU8 has experienced similar issues or if they have gotten this to work?  Unfortunately I don't have previous versions of Exchange 2016 to test with.

All replies (4)

_{Friday, March 2, 2018 1:59 AM ✅Answered}

Hi Magus,

The article has been affirmed at the beginning : This is no more applicable post Exchange 2013 CU11 for On-premise environments - also not valid for Exchange 2016!

So, I'm afraid as you guess, this no longer works in Exchange 2016.

Best Regards,
Niko Cheng
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_{Friday, March 2, 2018 2:45 PM}

Does anyone know how this works in Exchange 2016 since there is no published guidance anywhere?

_{Tuesday, March 13, 2018 9:28 AM}

Hi Magus,

As you have done, I think it could verify that "MinSuitableServer" is not applied to Exchange 2016.

Moreover, based on my searching, I never found some related information apply to Exchange 2016 also. If you want to achieve that, I recommend you open a ticket with Microsoft.

Best Regards,
Niko Cheng
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Click here to learn more. Visit the dedicated forum to share, explore and talk to experts about Microsoft Teams.

_{Monday, March 19, 2018 4:15 PM}

Thanks. I didn't see that had been added. Disappointing that this is the case.