Event ID 1000, faulting application maildsmx.dll, Active DIrectory Users and Computers, and a 2003 Terminal Server
I recently set up a Windows Server 2003 terminal server that admins in remote locations with spotty connectivity could use to perform certain bandwidth-heavy administrative tasks for some aging systems. In particular, I’ve created an Microsoft Management Console (MMC) featuring Active Directory Users and Computers and the Exchange 2003 management plug-in. The Exchange 2003 plugin is what drove me into the 2003 server. The plugin will not work with the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) tools released in Server 2008 and 2008 R2, and will not run on a 64-bit machine.
All that aside, it was met with rave reviews and I moved on to bigger and more interesting things. Today, however, I was contacted by one of the admins who was complaining that the MMC was crashing repeatedly, so I dug in to investigate. In the event logs I found the following error:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Microsoft Exchange Server
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 6/18/2012
Time: 9:10:49 AM
User: N/A
Computer: MyServer
Description:
Faulting application maildsmx.dll, version 6.5.6944.0, stamp 3edc4ebd, faulting module adprop.dll, version 5.2.3790.3959, stamp 45d70a1d, debug? 0, fault address 0x00043ca3.
Long story short, the problem was due to the fact that I was running under a very specific scenario. Namely, and I quote:
- You have an Active Directory forest that is running a Windows Server 2008 Active Directory schema. For example, you have extended the Active Directory schema to the Windows Server 2008 schema.
- You have a Windows Server 2003 member server that has Windows Support Tools installed.
- From the member server, you connect the Active Directory Users and Computers Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in to the domain.
- In the Active Directory Users and Computers MMC snap-in, you open the Properties dialog box for a user object, and then you close the dialog box. Later, you open the Properties dialog box for another user object.
- The whole thing is already written up in Microsoft KB 946459. All you have to do to solve the problem is apply the hotfix. Just make sure you download the correct version of the hotfix. Also note that, at least in my situation, the hotfix did require a reboot. Hope this helps someone out.
SweeneyOps 
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