SMTP Consumer May Not Send Critical Notification E-mail Messages

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Consumer may not send expected, critical e-mail notification from a Windows 2000-based server that is configured as an SMTP server with monitoring capabilities enabled. This problem can occur if the features that cause e-mail to be relayed are disabled on the server.

If Windows 2000 is configured as an SMTP server that accepts mail only from a valid or known e-mail address or with specific headers, you may not receive expected, critical notifications.

Generally, the SMTP Consumer is used to notify users of critical errors or catastrophic events. The SMTP Consumer sends a notification message to designated parties that details the critical error that took place (for example, a critical problem in a data center).

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000 Service Pack 1.

For additional information about how to install Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 hotfixes at the same time, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: