Prerequisites for Lync 2013 on Windows Server 2008 R2

So you have a brand new Windows 2008 R2 server that you plan to use as your Lync 2013 Server. First question is - why not use Windows Server 2012? Well, if you do have a good answer for that, please read on.

You have probably received the Lync installation files as an ISO file, so the first thing you need is some sort of software to access the contents of this file. I would recommend the MagicDisc freeware which you can use to mount the ISO file as a device in your server.

If you tried to run the Lync 2013 setup.exe now, you would see the following message.

So, on to downloading and installing Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1

To install the roles and features required for Lync 2013, open a powershell prompt as administrator and run the following commands:

Import-Module ServerManager
Add-WindowsFeature Web-Dyn-Compression,desktop-experience,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Scripting-Tools,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Log-Libraries,Web-Http-Tracing,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Default-Doc,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Client-Auth, Web-Filtering,Web-Mgmt-Console,Msmq-Server,Msmq-Directory

Next, you need the following three packages:

• .Net 4.5  
• Windows Identity Foundation 
• Windows Management Framework 3.0

And finally, you need to apply the following fix:
Heap corruption occurs when a module calls the InsertEntityBody method in IIS 7.5

Now you are ready to double-click setup.exe from the Lync 2013 installation package.

One additional prerequisite that you probably would like to load on your server is Silverlight which is required to run the Lync Control Panel.

Happy installing!

Lync Attendant (Switchboard operator) news

First, a big congratulation to Competella who now got their Competella Multimedia Attendant product on Microsoft's Qualified Lync Applications list.

The list contains five major areas of applications.

• Attendant console
• Billing & enhanced reporting
• Contact center
• Health management and quality of experience (QoE)
• Recording

And a total of 18 applications are listed as of today.
It will be interesting to see how this program grows for the benefit of all Lync users.

The second big news is that the Swedish organizations Trio and Visionutveckling are merging, both organizations have developed switchboard operator applications which work for Lync. Visionutveckling is privately held and Trio is owned by Enghouse Systems, a press release about the merger can be found here.

The magazine Telekomidag has an article in Swedish about the merger here.