MSMQ-Multicast cannot be enabled in servercore container about windows-containers

[ntrappe-msft]

Currently, MSMQ-Multicast will not work on Windows Server 2022 or Windows Server Core 2022 (I haven't checked 2019 yet). The MSMQ-Multicast package has two parent packages: Microsoft-Windows-Server-Shell and Microsoft-Windows-MSMQ-Server. It looks like MSMQ-Server is available for all but Server-Shell is not for Windows Server Core. We're determining whether this is intentional (that MSMQ-Multicast does not work in a container) or if there truly is a bug.

[ntrappe-msft]

Hi, thanks for bringing this Issue to our attention. Have you tried to enable MSMQ-Multicast on the full Windows Server image? To pare down Windows Server Core, we had to remove some of the less used features. It's possible that MSMQ-Multicast was included in that list and may no longer be accessible on Windows Server Core. I'll double check whether or not MSMQ-Multicast is fully removed or disabled (if it's disabled, there's a chance we could re-enable it). But, for now, can you try to repro this on full Server?

[mdekoster]

On the full server image the following Error is reported:

PS C:\> Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -FeatureName MSMQ-Multicast -All -Online
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature : The requested operation failed. A system reboot is required to roll back changes made.
At line:1 char:1
+ Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -FeatureName MSMQ-Multicast -All -Onlin ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature], COMException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Dism.Commands.EnableWindowsOptionalFeatureCommand

[fady-azmy-msft]

We're still looking into this, in the meantime what are you trying to achieve with MSMQ? @mdekoster

[ntrappe-msft]

Repro'd successfully.

In a Windows Server Core LTSC 2022 container, the following command fails.

> Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName MSMQ-Multicast -All

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature : One or several parent features 
are disabled so current feature can not be enabled.

I did enable MSMQ, MSMQ-Services, and MSMQ-Server individually and they were successful. (These features are all necessary for MSMQ-Multicast to be enabled and should be automatically enabled when we run ... MSMQ-Multicast -All).

I've collected some logs so we'll go through that and see what's going wrong.

[ntrappe-msft]

Internal ADO ticket (46857879).

[mdekoster]

We're still looking into this, in the meantime what are you trying to achieve with MSMQ? @mdekoster

We have an existing application/service which communicates with other application instances on other machines using MSMQ multicast.

[ntrappe-msft]

MSMQ-Multicast should not work in Windows Server Core by design. However, it should work in full Windows Server so I'm looking into this now.

[ntrappe-msft]

Looks like full Server doesn't have the Microsoft-Windows-Server-Shell package according to the log files. I'm going to talk to the team that owns full Server to confirm this. However, as of right now, it also looks like MSMQ-Mutlicast will not work on full Windows Server.