You are prompted multiple times for authentication when you try to access Central Administration, or you receive an error message when you try to configure the Office SharePoint Server Search service in SharePoint Server 2007

You experience the following symptoms in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007:

• After you install SharePoint Server 2007 by using NTLM authentication, you are prompted multiple times for authentication when you try to access the SharePoint Central Administration Web site. You can access Central Administration if you enter the credentials or if you cancel the prompts.
• When you try to configure the Office SharePoint Server Search service in Central Administration, you receive the following error message:
  An unhandled exception occurred in the user interface.
  Exception Information: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a receive.

This problem occurs because the Asp.dll file is the release version. The Asp.dll file is the release version if you install Internet Information Services (IIS) after you install Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 or Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1.

To resolve this problem, verify that the Asp.dll file is the release version, and then reinstall the Windows Server 2003 service pack that you want. To do this, follow these steps:

1. To verify that the Asp.dll file is the release version, follow these steps:
   1. In Windows Explorer, locate the following folder:
      Drive_Letter:\Windows\System32\inetsrv
   2. Right-click the Asp.dll file, and then click Properties.
   3. On the Version tab, verify that the file version that is displayed is as follows:
      6.0.3790.0
2. Download and then reinstall the Windows Server 2003 service pack that you want. For more information about how to do this, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
   889100  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889100/ ) How to obtain the latest service pack for Windows Server 2003

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