Minimum System Requirements and Forest Functional Level for Exchange Server 2016

Just one block – One Role

Exchange 2016 Prerequisites – 

Supported Forest Functional Level for Exchange Server 2016 –

• Active Directory must be at Windows Server 2008 forest functionality mode or higher.

Minimum Operation System Requirements-

• Windows Server 2016 Standard or Datacenter
• Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter
• Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter

Minimum Memory Requirement (RAM) –

• Mailbox Server 8GB minimum
• Edge Transport Server 4GB minimum

NOTE — Client Access Role is removed in Exchange Server 2016

Minimum Client Requirements –

• Outlook 2016
• Outlook 2013
• Outlook 2010 SP1 with KB2965295
• Outlook for Mac 2011
• Outlook for Mac for Office 365

Minimum Requirement for Exchange 2016 Coexistence –

• Removing Exchange 2007 Completely From the Environment.
• Exchange 2010 Sp3 with Updated Rollup 9 – Including Edge Transport Servers.
• Exchange 2013 Sp1 with Cumulative Update 8 – Including Edge Transport Servers

Fulfilling the above requirement – Exchange 2016 can coexist

Virtualization Support –

• Deployment on Microsoft Azure virtual machines is supported (All Storage volumes for Exchange databases/transaction logs/transport databases should use Azure Premium Storage.)
• Any Version of Hyper-V
• VMware vSphere 5.0 Update 2 or Higher
• To see other Supported Virtualization Products

Not Supported Scenarios –

1. Coexistence with Exchange 2007

2 .Outlook 2003/Outlook 2007 Clients are not Supported

3. Changing the Role of Window Server 2012/2012 R2 from a member server to a directory server, or vice versa, Where Exchange 2016 is already installed

4. Exchange Server 2016 running in Windows Server Core mode is not supported

Useful links –

To Test in Non-Production Environments –

Download Microsoft Exchange Server 2016

Installing Exchange 2016 on Windows Server 2012 R2