Exchange 2016: "There is a pending reboot from a previous installation of a Windows Server role or feature"

When I wanted to install CU11 for Exchange 2016, at the Prerequisites Check, I got the following error message:

"There is a pending reboot from a previous installation of a Windows Server role or feature."

I restarted the server twice, but still got the same message. After messing around with some registry keys and still no luck, I looked at the error message in more detail. The key part is "installation of a Windows Server role or feature". So this was not talking about a normal pending reboot because of a software installation, it talks about Server roles and features.

So I started Server Manager and installed a simple feature ("Telnet Client"). After that, the Exchange 2016 CU11 installation went through without problem.

21 thoughts on “Exchange 2016: "There is a pending reboot from a previous installation of a Windows Server role or feature"”

  1. Same issue here with CU21 and Server 2016. You helped me a lot! Greetings from Germany.

  2. this didn't work for me. but after trying to various suggested registry fixes, deleting pending.xls in winsxs, and everything else I could think of, I uninstalled java after noticing it had a pending update in the system tray (no idea why it was installed to begin with) and also uninstalled the antivirus and rebooted. one of those 2 fixed it. I would bet on the AV.

  3. Thanks a lot my friend.
    I faced the same issue while installing Exchange 2016 CU 20

    I enabled telnet client.

    Solution worked for me.

  4. thanks ! I've same issue and basic feature install solve the problem.. Thanks a lot for sharing !

  5. Thank you, so simple when you think about it. Its almost '4AM and i'll be able to go to bed soon! \o/

  6. Thanks a lot, helped me for CU18. I think it's good to know for every installation that fails because of this error message, not only Exchange. BR Dave :o)

  7. Perfect! That did it! I already had Telnet Client, so I added SNMP Client, and after that, just retry - no restart needed.

  8. Thank you! I installed XPS Viewer as I already had Telnet Client installed. No reboot required, just Retry.

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