This article applies to:

• MailMarshal ECM
• Exchange 2016/2019
• Cumulative Updates

Question:

• What are the best practices for installing Exchange Cumulative Updates (CUs) where ECM is installed?
• After installing CU the Exchange Transport Service stops with error from ECM Agent: Could not get pickup directory path

Background:

Some installations experience problems with the MailMarshal ECM Agent after installing CUs on the servers where the Agent is installed.

The error Could not get pickup directory path always means that the registry entry where this value should be found, cannot be read by the ECM services (usually because it does not exist).

Reports from the field suggest that sometimes Exchange CU installs remove this registry entry and do not re-create it.

Procedure:

When installing a CU, as best practice:

1. Set the status of ECM Exchange Agent to “Agent not installed”.
2. Install the CU and restart the server.
3. Confirm all relevant Exchange services are started.
4. Confirm the presence and correct data in the required registry entry, on all Exchange servers where ECM Agent is installed:
   • Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ExchangeServer\v15\Pickup
   • String value named: Path
   • The value is the location of the Pickup folder. By default this is
     C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\TransportRoles\Pickup  
5. Confirm that security settings allow all services to read this Registry location.
6. Set the status of ECM Exchange Agent to Installed/Bypass.
7. Set the status to Installed/Enabled.

Some customers have created a GPO setting to ensure the Registry entry always exists.

Notes:

On “test” Exchange Server systems without a full Microsoft Exchange license, it has sometimes been observed that CU installation may not start the Exchange services in order or in a timely way. On test systems you may need to manually start Exchange services.