I had a strange problem at work today when installing a new Exchange 2007 server.

A client of mine has an existing Windows 2003 Small Business Server running Exchange 2003, and even though there are only 12 users, their mailstore is approaching 70 GB.

As there is nothing wrong with the existing SBS box the recommendation was made to put in a separate box running Exchange 2007, to allow them to use the additional storage limits and extra functionality that Exchange 2007 offers them.

Running Exchange 2007 in an SBS environment is not your every day occurance, but tehre is no reason not to do it.

Having run up my new box running Windows 2003 Server Standard Edition R2 (64 Bit), promoted it to be a domain controller, made the box a global catalogue server, moved the schema master role over (as you must do when you are installing it into an SBS environment) I went about installing Exchange 2007.

Unfortunately I got a strange error message half way through the checking process stating:

“Access control list (ACL) inheritance is blocked”

After Googling the problem, I came across a Microsoft Technet article that indicated that the problem was being caused by the fact that one or more of my Public Folders (on the Exchange 2003 box) was not inheriting permissions and thus the install was failing.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/bb643112.aspx

I opened up Exchange System Manager on the SBS box and tried to navigate to the “Folders” section but couldn’t find it. I restarted the system attendant service but it still did not appear.

I knew that public folders existed and were working, as I could access them in Outlook, but Exchange System Manager seemed unable to find them or display them.

Following the article, I opened up the registry editor, added the suggested DWORD and BINGO… back came my “folders” section in Exchange System Manger…

Just as the article sugested, permissions were not propergating to any of the Public Folders…

I ticked the box to allow permissions to propagate down, went for a cigarette, then re-ran the setup wizard which completed perfectly.

Hopefully this might help someoene else in the future.