Certain Windows Server 2003 hotfixes have been repackaged to be compatible with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2)

The scenario that is described in this article applies to a select group of less than 200 customers worldwide who received 26 recent hotfixes for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) between October 2006 and January 2007. These 26 hotfixes are incompatible with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2). These hotfixes should be replaced with new hotfixes before you install Windows Server 2003 SP2.

Typically, most customers will have only one or two of these specific hotfixes deployed in their environment.

Most customers who received these incompatible hotfixes have already been notified by Microsoft. This Knowledge Base article is published to make sure that customers who could not be contacted directly are informed so that they can take necessary action.

During the final testing for a service pack, it is not always possible to incorporate every individual hotfix into the service pack. If new hotfixes were incorporated every day, the final testing date would have to be reset. Additionally, it would lead to a situation in which the service pack final testing could never be completed. Instead, there is a short lockdown phase where newly issued hotfixes are not included in the service pack.

However, the service pack may contain a later version of a specific file than the hotfix. One option is to stop issuing hotfixes during the final phases of a service pack. This option has a significant business effect on corporations that require a new hotfix. A second option is to re-release these hotfixes after the service pack is released. This option incorporates any final service pack fixes and has a later version number than the service pack version of the file. Microsoft uses this second option. However, this second option means that some enterprises have to take extra steps when they deploy a new service pack. This is a one-time event for a service pack. It affects a fixed and well-defined set of hotfixes, and these hotfixes are documented at the release.

For Windows Server 2003 SP2, there are 26 specific hotfixes that must be reinstalled either before or after you install the service pack. To install Windows Server 2003 SP2, the recommended procedure is to first install the reissued hotfixes. Then, install Windows Server 2003 SP2 at a time that is convenient for you. The hotfixes will automatically migrate to the SP2 version of the hotfix.

If Windows Server 2003 SP2 is installed without replacing these hotfixes, the installation will complete successfully. However, the behavior fix that is previously provided by the hotfix will not be present after SP2 installation.

This issue does not affect any Windows Server 2003 hotfixes that are available publicly, either from the Microsoft Download Center or from the Windows Update Web site. This includes Windows Server 2003 security updates. This issue is limited to these 26 hotfixes that were made available only from Microsoft Customer Support to specific customers. Microsoft typically informs these customers when we deliver these hotfixes.

If you have been notified by Microsoft or if you know that you have installed any of the hotfixes that are listed in this article after October 2006, contact Microsoft to obtain the updated hotfix packages. The new hotfix packages can be deployed on a Windows Server 2003-based computer that has either SP1 or SP2 installed. You can install the hotfix packages either before you deploy SP2 or after SP2 is fully installed.

Before Windows Server 2003 SP2 was released, extensive testing was performed to make sure that all the included fixes and updates worked correctly. During the time before Windows Server 2003 SP2 was released, new customer-requested hotfixes were not incorporated into SP2 to enable the SP2 code base to be stabilized and released. For customers who needed solutions immediately in that time period, Microsoft released these fixes. These fixes were designed to be installed only in Windows Server 2003 SP1.

New packages for the 26 affected hotfixes are now available from Microsoft. The new hotfixes are suitable for installation together with both SP1 and SP2. After the affected hotfixes are replaced by the new packages, you can install SP2 at your convenience.

The following table lists the Microsoft Knowledge Base articles that correspond to versions of hotfixes that are incompatible with Windows Server 2003 SP2. Also, this table lists the Knowledge Base articles that correspond to the repackaged versions of the affected hotfixes. Microsoft has released a tool that can be used to help customers who have deployed the incompatible hotfixes in their environments. The tool helps manage the detection and the deployment of the revised versions of these hotfixes. This tool can be used to detect specific servers that have one or more of these hotfixes installed. This tool can also be used to verify that all the replacement hotfixes have been fully redeployed. Do not run this tool if you have not installed any of the hotfixes that are identified in this article. If you have been explicitly notified by Microsoft or if you know that you asked for and received one of the incompatible fixes between October 2006 and January 2007, you may find this tool useful to manage and to track your remediation.

Note This article applies to less than 200 customers. Microsoft has already taken proactive steps to contact them directly.

Earlier versions of Windows, such as Microsoft Windows 2000, included this tool as a setup blocklist in the service pack installer. However, the service pack had to be deployed to individual servers to detect if the specific hotfixes were present. There was no easy way to verify that servers were compliant before you deployed the service pack. During a scheduled installation, if one of the hotfixes was encountered, the service pack installation would be stopped.

The separate tool provides a better solution in managed environments. Additionally, because this issue affects only some individual customers, building detection into the service pack for every customer adds increased complexity.

For more information about a tool to scan the computer for hotfixes that block the installation of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: