When messages that are generated with the Microsoft Collaboration Data Objects for NTS (CDONTS) or Microsoft Collaboration Data Objects for Windows 2000 (CDOSYS) contain a period at the beginning of the line and are placed in the SMTP Pickup directory for delivery, the leading period is removed. This may distort the validity of the line.

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To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: In Windows 2000 Service Pack 3, the metabase key DisablePickupDotStuff has been added to turn on or off the automatic removal of periods at the beginning of the line. After you apply the service pack, follow the steps in the "More Information" section.

The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

   Date       Time     Version         Size      File name
   ----------------------------------------------------------
   5/31/2001  03:32p   5.0.2195.3651   434,448   Smtpsvc.dll
   5/31/2001  03:31p   5.0.2195.3649   320,272   Aqueue.dll
   5/31/2001  03:31p   5.0.2195.3649    44,816   Fcachdll.dll
   5/31/2001  03:31p   5.0.2195.3649    66,832   Mailmsg.dll
   5/31/2001  03:31p   5.0.2195.3649    38,160   Ntfsdrv.dll

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Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Internet Information Services 5.0.

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Warning If you edit the metabase incorrectly, you can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall any product that uses the metabase. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that result if you incorrectly edit the metabase can be solved. Edit the metabase at your own risk.

Note Always back up the metabase before you edit it. The following metabase key has been added to turn on or off the automatic removal of periods at the beginning of the line: If you set this key to a value of 1, periods will not be removed at the beginning of the line. If you set this key to a value of 0 (default), the leading period will be removed from the beginning of a line.

Note The Smtpmd.exe utility that you use to set this key is not available publicly. Please contact Microsoft Support to obtain this utility. For more information about how to contact Microsoft Support, visit the following Microsoft Web site:Also note that you can use MetaEdit instead. The procedure for using the MetaEdit utility is described at the end of this section.

To set DisablePickupDotStuff, use the Smtpmd.exe utility as follows:

Note Restart Internet Information Services to apply the changes. You can also install MetaEdit and make the changes that are described in this article. To do this:

1.	Run MetaEdit against the server that has the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service.
2.	Expand LM, and then expand SmtpSvc.
3.	Locate the virtual instance that you want to change (this is typically the first virtual instance). This is indicated by a subnode named 1 under the SmtpSvc node.
4.	View the properties for this node.
5.	Make sure that the value for the property with the ID of 37030 is 1. If you do not see this property, add it.

For additional information about where to download MetaEdit, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

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