Office Outlook 2003 may stop responding on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP because of a problem in the RPC engine

You are using the following products together:

• Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or a later version of Outlook
• Microsoft Exchange
• Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Microsoft Windows Server 2003

In this configuration, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

• Network outages and connectivity issues cause the Outlook client to stop responding. You may have to restart the Outlook client to resume the full range of expected functions.
  
  Note The network outages and connectivity issues are similar to issues that you may experience in wireless scenarios.
• The Outlook client stops responding if you are connecting to an Exchange server by using Connect to my mail box using HTTP functionality. This scenario is common if you are connecting to an Exchange server over the Internet.
• The Exchange server stops responding when the Exchange server handles client requests from Outlook 2003 or from a later version of Outlook. You may have to restart the Exchange server to resume the full range of expected functions.

In Windows XP with SP2 or in Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), you may also experience remote procedure call (RPC) engine reliability issues in applications that use asynchronous RPC and RPC over HTTP functionality. The symptoms of RPC engine reliability issues may include the following:

• Client applications receive error messages that report unhandled access violation exceptions.
• Client applications that use RPC stop responding.

Additionally, when you use the DSFR service in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

• The DFSR service stops responding. You may have to restart the DFSR service to resume the full range of expected functions.
• The DFSR service does not replicate DFS root data. You may have to restart the DFSR service to resume the full range of expected functions.

These problems occur because of a problem in the RPC engine (Rpcrt4.dll).

Windows Server 2003

Update information

The following files are available for download from the Microsoft download center:


Windows Server 2003, x86-based versions
Download the 908521 package now.

Windows Server 2003, Itanium-based versions
Download the 908521 package now.

Windows Server 2003, x64-based versions
Download the 908521 package now.

For more information about how to download Microsoft support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.

Prerequisites

To apply this update on x86-based and Itanium-based versions of Windows Server 2003, you must have Windows Server 2003 SP1 installed on the computer.

Restart requirement

You must restart the computer after you apply this update.

Update replacement information

This update does not replace any other updates.

File information

The English version of this update 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 item in Control Panel.

Windows Server 2003, x86-based versions
Windows Server 2003, Itanium-based versions
Windows Server 2003, x64-based versions

Windows XP

Update information

The following files are available for download from the Microsoft download center:


Windows XP with SP2
Download the 908521 package now.

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Download the 908521 package now.

For more information about how to download Microsoft support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.

Prerequisites

To apply this update on x86-based versions of Windows XP, you must have Windows XP SP2 installed on the computer.

Restart requirement

You must restart the computer after you apply this update.

Update replacement information

This update does not replace any other updates.

File information

The English version of this update 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 item in Control Panel.

Windows XP with SP2
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

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

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