Basic questions regarding installing Forefront EP Client 2010 on Windows 2012 R2

Question

Hi,
We have a handful of servers and client machines (although these always seem to be expanding) and as such have previously just installed the Forefront Endpoint 2010 Client manually onto the various endpoints with updates being pushed via WSUS from a Windows
2008R2 machine, without running to a full installation of SCCM or the Forefront Endpoint Server. However, trying to install the FEP 2010 client directly onto new Windows 2012R2 servers result in a "This OS is not supported" error.
After checking some articles it appears that FEP 2010 might well be supported on Win 2012R2 (and Windows 8), but only if installed via SCCM. Is this correct?
We do have access to SCCM 2012, but again I have shied away from this. I had hoped that maybe the SCCM Endpoint client could also be installed manually once more, but trying to install this on a Windows 2012R2 machine results in a "Windows compatibility
mode is not supported by this program" error.
Am I barking up the wrong tree and will I now have to finally learn and install SCCM? If so I take it that I can update my 2008R2 WSUS server to firstly Win 2012RS WSUS, then add SCCM 2012?
Cheers
Chris

Answer 1

Hi Joyce,
Thanks for the feedback.
Hi,
>>After checking some articles it appears that FEP 2010 might well be supported on Win 2012R2 (and Windows 8), but only if installed via SCCM. Is this correct?
According to the blog below, Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 with Update Rollup 1
is supported on Windows Server 2012 R2.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2013/09/16/support-questions-about-win-8.1-and-winsvr-2012-r2-for-configmgr-and-endpoint-protection.aspx
Please make sure you are running FEP 2010 update rollup 1. You could get it from the following link.
http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/2907566/en-us
Thanks for the feedback. I should have said that I have indeed tried this. From the initial link you posted I found the "Update Rollup 1 for Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010" (http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/2551095/en-us), however, this update
itself apparently requires a prerequisite. Whist I have tried to install the prerequisite (http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/2554364/en-us) and the Forefront Update Rollup 1 directly onto a a Windows 2012 R2 machine, I end up with errors:
Installing the Prerequisite result in a "Error code: 1642" in the log file. Have have tried to chase this error, but have not spent too much time digging as yet, but this appears to be more to do with the FEP server than the client.
Installing with the FEP Update Rollup (obviously without the prerequisite), give us three folders (FepExt, FepReport and FepUx), none of which seem to be the client per se
>>Ah, the later problem of trying to install a client from SCCM 2012 onto Windows 2012R2 maybe because I have been using SCCM 2012 SP1, and not SCCM 2012R2??
In SCCM 2012, Endpoint Protection 2012 is integrated so you cannot install FEP 2010 in it.
Best Regards,
Joyce
No no, What I meant was that I had hoped that I could install the client contained within SCCM 2012 R2 installation material manually onto a vanilla Windows 2012 R2 box (which is what I'm trying to do), in the same way that I could install the FEP 2010 on
previous Windows OS. The ISO that I have currently from our systems team is that of SCCM 2012 SP1, not SCCM 2012 R2, and the client within the SP1 package does not install in Windows 2012 R2. I'm tyring to get hold of the SCCM 2012 R2 ISO now, which (from
what I read) should allow me to manually install the client.
I may well play with SCCM later, but is a little over kill for our estate (read 10's of servers and clients, rather than 1000's), however, we should have a campus licence for SCCM.
Regards
Chris