Exchange 2013 Filtering Management and Transport Service Won't Start

I've seen this issue crop up from time to time on Exchange 2013 builds, where you get an error for the Microsoft Filtering Management Service which throws an 80004005, which also causes the Microsoft Exchange Transport Service to throw a 1068 error.

The Filtering Service is the Exchange protection/antimalware scanning component and it's a dependency of the Transport Service.

What usually causes this is a misconfigured A/V solution that doesn't have the proper Exchange exclusions set, and it rips out a needed file.

**Note** Follow this not-so-short MS article to set those A/V exclusions.

There's a couple ways to go about fixing the issue, but I'll show you the easiest.

Here's the errors you'll likely see:

 

First, search in the Event Viewer > Application Logs for an error stating that the ConfigurationServer.xml file is missing.

If so, we'll need to add that file back in.

Mount or open the Exchange Cumulative Update setup file that matches the current build you're running on your Exchange servers.

**Tip** Always keep your most recent CU files, because things like this happen *cough* often *cough* with recent versions of Exchange - test much, Microsoft?

Once you have your CU setup files open, browse to the Setup\Filtering directory, and you'll see the "ConfigurationServer.xml" file in there.

Copy the "ConfigurationServer.xml" file to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\FIP-FS\Data" on your Exchange server.

**Note** You can copy that file from a working Exchange server, but it involves many more steps such as disabling the malware scanning, rebooting, disabling services, renaming files, blah blah...my way is faster.

Now that you've copied over the missing file from the CU setup, you should be able to:

Start the Filtering Service

Start the Transport Service

**Note** You may have to reboot before you're able to start those services.

Now you should have a healthy Exchange server...go check those A/V exclusions!