Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Config Wizard Fails

Question

I have just installed Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials on a new PC.

The server boots to the windows desktop, and a wizard appears asking us to enter an admin username, a domain, and name the PC.

Upon pressing submit, we receive the following error:

This message then re-appears every time the server is rebooted.

I've tried installing all windows updates. I have also tried re-installing and installing all updates before attempting to use the Config wizard. In all cases, we get the same problem.

Looking in the event viewer, it seems the service "Windows Server Essentials Management Service" is crashing:

The Windows Server Essentials Management Service service terminated unexpectedly.  It has done this 2 time(s).  The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

Any suggestions on how to proceed and complete this configuration wizard?

Solution

I have managed to resolve the issue, thanks to this blog post: http://techspeeder.com/2014/06/09/an-error-occurred-while-configuring-windows-server-essentials-please-try-again/

The username we had picked for the admin account was "CompanyNameAdmin".

It turns out having the word "admin" or "Administrator" in the username causes it to fail.

Clearly putting a check for that before submitting was too much work for Microsoft :@

Comments

[Bill_Stewart]

Weird; this worked for me also (Server 2016 Essentials).