The Information Store service and Outlook 2003 crash intermittently when Outlook 2003 clients connect to a mailbox on an Exchange 5.5 server

When a Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 user connects to a mailbox that is hosted on a computer that is running Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5, you may experience one or both of the following symptoms:

• The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service may crash.
• The Outlook 2003 client program may crash.

This problem occurs if all the following conditions are true:

• The Outlook 2003 user selected the Use Cached Exchange Mode check box in the E-mail Accounts dialog box.
• The Outlook 2003 user created rules to move certain messages to folders in the user's Outlook profile.

This problem is intermittent and depends on the memory layout of the Exchange server. Outlook rule operations may cause the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service or the Outlook client program to crash. In this scenario, the Exchange Server 5.5 information store does not convert the ASCII character set information to Unicode before the information store renders that data to the Outlook client. Therefore, Exchange may return corrupted data to the Outlook client program. The corrupted data causes Outlook to crash.

Hotfix information

A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that this article describes. Apply it only to systems that you determine are at risk of attack. Evaluate the computer's physical accessibility, network and Internet connectivity, and other factors to determine the degree of risk to the computer. See the associated Microsoft Security Bulletin to help determine the degree of risk. This hotfix may receive additional testing. If the computer is sufficiently at risk, we recommend that you apply this hotfix now.

To resolve this problem immediately, download the hotfix by following the instructions later in this article or contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services telephone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site: Note In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled, if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

Prerequisites

Because of file dependencies, you must have Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 4 (SP4) installed to apply this hotfix. You may apply this hotfix to either the Standard edition or the Enterprise edition of Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Restart requirement

You do not have to restart your computer after you apply this hotfix.

Hotfix replacement information

This hotfix does not replace any other hotfixes. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

File information

The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later file attributes) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: