How to troubleshoot Exchange 2000 system attendant startup failures

Under certain circumstances, your Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server system attendant may not start, which prevents all other Exchange 2000 services from starting as well. To ascertain the cause of the failure, enable Exchange 2000 system attendant diagnostics logging by using the Exchange System Manager.

To enable Exchange 2000 system attendant diagnostics logging by using the Exchange System Manager:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
2. Expand the following objects:
   Your_Organization
   Servers
3. Right-click your server, and click Properties.
   
   Note If your system attendant is down at this point, you receive the following error message after step 3:
   The Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service is unavailable. Verify that the Server is running and that the System Attendant service has been started. ID no: c1031668
   Click OK to close this error message.
4. Click the Diagnostics Logging tab.
5. Click MSExchangeSA in the left-hand pane.
6. For each sub-component (NSPI, Proxy, and RFR Interface), enable the logging level appropriate for your troubleshooting scenario (minimum, medium, or maximum).

The Exchange 2000 system attendant is responsible for proxying downlevel client requests (Microsoft Outlook 97 and Microsoft Outlook 98 clients) to the Active Directory, as well as referring client requests (for clients such as Outlook 2000) to the Active Directory.

If the system attendant has difficulty locating a domain controller to issue proxy requests or referrals to, it may prevent the system attendant from starting. This target server can be determined by reviewing the events that the system attendant logs in Event Viewer.

Also, the system attendant loads the following dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) into its address space: If any of these files are missing, corrupted, or have the incorrect permissions applied to them, it may also prevent the system attendant from starting successfully.

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