Exchange 2007 or 2010 EMC might fail to close with "You must close all dialog boxes before you can close Exchange Management Console"
Published Sep 09 2011 10:12 AM 6,923 Views
Microsoft

Update 10/21/11: There is now a fix for this issue. Please go here to learn how to get it.

We wanted to write a blog post about an issue that some of you have reported to us, and has been discussed at some length in Exchange Forums also.

After you install Internet Explorer 9 on a computer that has Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2007 management tools installed, you might run into a situation where closing the Exchange Management Console (EMC) results in the following error:

You must close all dialog boxes before you can close Exchange Management Console

This might happen even if there are no property pages left opened that you can see. Please note here that not all of our customers who installed IE9 on a computer with Exchange management tools (server or workstation) have run into this problem.

Are there any workarounds?

As it stands right now, we are not aware of a reliable workaround for this problem. Terminating the EMC using the Task Manager (or possibly a command or script) does not have adverse effects on management tools functionality, but is clearly a non-optimal solution.

What are we doing to address this?

The EMC is implemented as a Microsoft Management Console snap-in. We are working closely with both MMC and Internet Explorer teams to find a solution to this problem. Due to the complex nature of several products involved and the interoperability between them, identifying the root cause was not simple; things are still in process and we do not have a firm solution or a date to share with you yet. We do, however, want to say that we are very aware of this issue and several teams are collaborating and working to get this addressed. Once more details are available, we will be sure to share them here.

Nino Bilic

30 Comments
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This is an issue since months - without any solution. No good deal...

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Appreciate the honesty but one question springs to mind how on earth did this get through QA? We are all told to keep up to date with versions to prtotect us from security issues and then something like this gets through. Don't get me wrong I'm an avid supporter of Exchange and all things MS, but the the recent QA issues with CU3, then CU4 and now such basic functionallity with MMC leaves us wondering if attention to detail has gone out the window.

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Thank you for addressing the issue.

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I have the issue with not only EMC closing but another issue when I click on the properties of a user from within Active Directory Users and Computers on my Windows 7 64bit box. The issue appears with the MMC from my perspective.

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Thanks for your work and help on this issue, Nino!

I'm summarizing and tracking this issue on my blog: www.expta.com/.../issue-with-ie9-and-exchange-2010.html

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Sorry Nino, this problem is over half a year old and the only solution is to switch back to IE 8. And it affects not only Exchange 2010 MMC, but also Forefron Security MMC.

Regards

Bernd

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Actually, in my experience, just log off. I mean if you are not in the console anymore, chances are, you are logging out of your session. Never had an issue, just annoying.

Chris

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I've never had this problem in EMS

>_>

<_<

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Actually if you unexpand (i think that this is the good word) the "Microsoft Exchange On-Premises" tab and after that you click on the main "Microsoft Exchange" the "You must close all dialog boxes" error does not appear.

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I have the same problem. About month

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This issue is really old, since MS deployed IE9 through windows updates a few months ago.

there were quite fast articles on the net that this was a nifty bug to fix.

there is no solution still, or kill it through task manager or leave the EMC open. doesnt harm anyone.

When you go for a reboot it will kill the EMC process itself.

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Try this if you have IE9 installed:

Go to: “C:%ProgramFiles%Microsoft Forefront Threat Management GatewayUI_HTMLsTabsHandler”

Edit the file TabsHandler.htc

Comment all lines with "padding Top" out > Lines 353, 360, 367

//_m_aPages [niPage].m_tdMain.style.paddingTop …

Save the file, there's no need to restart the services.

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Lately I have right-clicking on the EMC and selecting "Run as administrator".  It seems to close more often than before.

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The best workaround I've found so far is to add https://localhost to the trusted sites list in IE and then close all IE windows and the EMC.  You may also need to disable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration for Admins and Users.

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We are in the process of upgrading to Exchange 2010 from Exchange 2007, and we did not install IE9 because of this. This is not really the end of the world, but it is pretty annoying. I guess it takes being an administrator full time to really see the effect and the lost time associated with this issue.

I also saw a similar issue when we were migrating from 2003 to 2007 a few years ago. We were moving about 10 mailboxes at a time, and in order to close any of the dialogue boxes, all moves had to be completed. I am not sure if this is related, and we were running IE8 at the time.

Sometimes it also acts pretty stubborn even when trying to force it closed with the taskmgr. This will be a nice fix to have. Thanks for acknowledging and addressing the issue.

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I have a great solution to this problem, simply uninstall IE9, problem solved.

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The greatest Solution is not to install IE9 ! I don't need IE9 on Exchange Servers, you!? ;)

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The reality is Internet Explorer is already on all of our Exchange servers and has been for years. It's natural to want to try and keep it up to date as much as possible, to protect against someone accidentally clicking a link they shouldn't.

And before you say "you shouldn't be clicking a link on your servers", realize we have all done the cut and paste of event log data into a search while logged into a box to see if we can quickly resolve some problem. Also there are links inside of several Microsoft products such as the Event Viewer itself.

So... I personally have installed it on my servers and just accepted the fact that we won't be able to close the EMC w/o killing it or logging off. Honestly it isn't that big of a deal - although it is annoying it hasn't been fixed for some time now.

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This IE9 issue not only affects Exchange, but also TMG and likely other products as well. I can't understand that this has not been detected during testing of IE9.

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If you have a repro in TMG console, could you please email me the repro steps, perhaps with screenshots? Also please verify that you are running IE9 RTM version (not Beta). I would like to make sure that TMG case is covered in whatever work we do  to address this in EMC. Please email me at ninob AT microsoft DOT com. Thank you!

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Thanks for addressing this issue through this blog.  While this bug is not a major issue, it is a pretty big annoyance that seems to go on and on and on...   I am looking forward to a resolution as soon as possible.

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Thanks for posting the article. It's very helpful information. I'm relaxed knowing it's your issue and you're working on it. Now I don't have to worry that it's something on my systems in particular.

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you just want us to leave EMC behind and start using EMS only :D

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This is painfull. Please make it go away

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I am also effected with this. I am running exchange 2010 sp1 with rollup5

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Interesting -

Have two different Exchange 2010 Servers on two different Domains.... had installed IE9 and things were okay..hmm...then came some fixes on a Tuesday - and bang!  Now the problem exist with closing non-existent dialog boxes .... hmmm..then there was another fix that seem to appear (unfortunately I can't seem to remember just when) and now one server has the problem and the other one doesn't... Point being as I'm not so sure it was IE9...

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"This is painful" - no it really isn't. I'm affected by this daily, and at the most it's "unfortunate". I agree with the people who have pointed out it is unrealistic to remove IE - and presumably this issue is also affecting those with EMC installed locally rather than using it through an RDP session, making that idea very moot.

Patience - a solution will come along eventually.

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adding https://localhost worked for me

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Just wanted to check to see if you have any ETA on a fix for this.

Thanks. :)

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@Ole Drews Jensen: please see the update on the blog post (in red) - basically, this: blogs.technet.com/.../a-fix-for-the-interoperability-issues-between-exchange-2007-and-2010-emc-and-i...

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