An SMTP connector does not pick up outgoing security settings after you configure it in Exchange Server 2003

When you create a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) connector on your Microsoft Exchange Server 2003-based computer for a remote SMTP organization, and then you configure that connector to require outgoing authentication, mail flow that is intended for the remote SMTP organization may not be delivered successfully. Additionally, the SMTP connector may not try to authenticate as expected.

This problem occurs if all the following conditions are true:

• A user from your Exchange organization sends a message to a user in the remote organization before you configure the SMTP connector.
• You configure an SMTP connector to deliver messages to the remote organization.
• The outgoing security for the SMTP connector is configured to require authentication.
• You do not restart the SMTP service after you configure the SMTP connector.

If these conditions are true, the outgoing authentication requirements are not picked up by the SMTP connector.

To work around this problem, restart the SMTP service. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
2. Type net stop smtpsvc, and then press ENTER.
3. Type net start smtpsvc, and then press ENTER.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

For additional information about how to configure Exchange 2003, see the Exchange Server 2003 Administration Guide. To obtain this guide, visit the following Microsoft Web site: For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: