Most likely you’ve seen this information before, because of my vacation in Dallas and New Orleans I’m a bit behind with blogging 😊

But on October 16, 2018 Microsoft has released Cumulative Update 11 (CU11) for Exchange 2016, this is a little later than expected to align the release of Exchange 2016 Cumulative Updates with the upcoming release of Exchange 2019. . There’s only a release for Exchange 2016, there won’t be any new CU’s for Exchange 2013 since Exchange 2013 is already in extended support. There will be security updates for Exchange 2013 though.

Exchange server and .NET Framework is not a happy marriage and it continues to be a struggle, or at least it looks that way. Exchange 2016 CU11 now supports .NET Framework 4.7.2. This version of .NET Framework is not mandatory, installation of .NET Framework 4.7.2 can be before installing of CU11 or after CU11. The .NET Framework 4.7.2 will be required for a future CU of Exchange 2016.

Another dependency is Visual C++, you might have seen this in previous CU’s and also in Exchange 2010 Update Rollup 23 as well. To avoid any issue, install Visual C++ 2012 (https://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=30679) before installing Exchange 2016 CU11.

Exchange 2016 CU11 does not have any schema changes. If you’re upgrading from an older version of Exchange 2016, Active Directory changes (in the configuration container) might be needed. These will automatically be applied by the setup application, but you can also choose to update the configuration partition manually by running setup.exe /PrepareSchema /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

As always, you should test a Cumulative Update thoroughly before bringing it to production, it won’t be the first time something goes wrong in production with a CU. But I have to say, I haven’t seen any major blocking issues so far…

More information and downloads of Exchange 2016 CU11:

• CU11 KB article: https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4134118
• Download CU11: https://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=57388
• CU11 UM Language Pack: https://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=57383