PRB: Certificate Server Fails to Start After Unattended Installation

After an unattended installation of the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack, including Certificate Server version 1.0, the Certificate Authority service fails to start. The following application event log entry is generated: WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys And Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it. If you are running Windows NT, you should also update your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD).

To work around this problem, run the following REGEDIT or REGINI script to create the "CertSrv" ODBC data source after the unattended Setup completes and you have restarted the server.

Please note that the path specified in the "Driver" and "DBQ" entries must be adjusted according to the actual configuration.

REGEDIT script file (CERTSRV.REG):

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\odbc.ini\CertSrv]
"Driver"="C:\\WINNT\\System32\\odbcjt32.dll"
"DBQ"="C:\\WINNT\\System32\\CertLog\\certsrv.mdb"
"DriverId"=dword:00000019
"SafeTransactions"=dword:00000000
"UID"="Admin"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\odbc.ini\CertSrv\Engines\Jet]
"ImplicitCommitSync"="Yes"
"Threads"=dword:00000003
"UserCommitSync"="Yes"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\odbc.ini\ODBC Data Sources]
"CertSrv"="Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)"

The Regedit.exe utility is included with Windows NT Server 4.0. It can be run in silent mode by using the /S command-line option. A sample command line is: REGINI script file: Regini.exe is a utility to manipulate the registry either locally or remotely using a script file. This utility is included with the Windows NT Server Resource Kit.

The problem is caused by the unattended Setup program not adding the required ODBC data source for the Certificate Server database.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Certificate Server version 1.0.