XADM: Information Store Service Does Not Start After You Install Service Pack 1 on a Clustered Exchange Server

After you apply Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 1 (SP1) to node2 of a cluster of Microsoft Exchange 2000 Servers, you fail over the virtual servers back to node1 of the cluster. After the failover is complete, the Microsoft Exchange information store service on node1 of the cluster does not start.

NOTE: Node1 and node2 represent two individual nodes in the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server cluster. These symptoms may also occur on the opposite nodes in a cluster.

One or all of the following events may also appear in the Application event viewer: where Name_of_storage_group is the name of cluster storage group. where Name_of_storage_group is the name of cluster storage group; where Name_of_mailbox_store is the name of the Exchange mailbox store. where Name_of_storage_group is the name of cluster storage group; where Name_of_mailbox_store is the name of the Exchange mailbox store; and where Database is the name of the Exchange Server database.

When you mount the databases after you update one of the nodes to SP1, the databases are marked as accessed by an SP1 version of the Store.exe file.

After failback of the virtual servers, the new active node uses a pre-SP1 version of the Store.exe file. The earlier version of Store.exe will not let the Microsoft Exchange information store service start.

To resolve this issue, verify that SP1 successfully installed on the cluster node where the databases did not mount. To verify this, compare the version of Store.exe on each of the cluster nodes.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. In Windows Explorer, locate the Store.exe file.
2. Right-click Store.exe, and then click Properties.
3. Click Version.
4. Note the File version, and then click OK.
5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 on the remaining node in the cluster.

After you note the version of Store.exe on each node in the cluster, compare the version numbers. If the version numbers do not match, you must reapply SP1 on the node with the earlier version number.

The following table lists the version numbers of the Store.exe file for Exchange 2000 Server and for Exchange 2000 Server with SP1 installed.

If you apply SP1 in a clustered Exchange 2000 Server environment, make sure that you apply the service packs through a rolling upgrade.

For additional information on how to complete a rolling upgrade with Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 1, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: