All the Exchange services fail to start, and you receive an “Error 1058 The service cannot be started either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it" error message

When you try to start any of the Exchange services, the message transfer agent (MTA) or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol(SMTP) from Control Panel / Services, you may receive the following error message:

If Exchange Server is running on a Microsoft Windows cluster, the Microsoft Exchange MTA Stacks resource will not start. The Cluster log will display the following error message:

This behavior can occur if the service is disabled within the current hardware profile.

To resolve this behavior, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click the Services icon.
2. Select the Microsoft Exchange Message Transfer Agent service, and then click Hardware Profiles.
3. Click the current hardware profile, click Enable, and then click OK.
4. Ensure that the Startup Type for the service is set to Manual or Automatic.
5. Click Start to start the service.

The Hardware Profile Setting is designed to assist computers that have multiple configurations. Third-party applications often disable this service to ensure that these services do not disrupt their product. To check and correct Hardware Profile behaviors:

1. Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click the Services icon.
2. Click the service that is not responding, and then click Hardware Profiles.
3. Verify that the setting for the original configuration is enabled. If the setting for the original configuration is not enabled, double-click to change the setting.

NOTE: This behavior can occur for any service listed under Services in Control Panel.

For more information about other causes of error 1058, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: