SMTP Service won't shut down

[penguin69]

I am trying to install Exchange 2003 SP1 and everytime I do, it attempts to shutdown the Exchange Services, then the SMTP service, then it hangs on stopping. It is a clean install, (not upgraded from win2k) and it is running Win2003. If I try to reboot the server, everything comes back up okay, but even if I manually try to stop the smtp service, it still hangs at stopping and NEVER releases. I am forced to reboot.

I currently have Mcafee Groupshield 6.0 installed, and I have tried stopping all of those services prior to shutting down the SMTP service, still, no avail.

Also, I have cleaned out my BadMail folder as well....

Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Thanks in advance!!

 

[kraigtech]

Penguin69, I've installed Exchange 2003 on Win2k3 probably a hundred times (test and dev networks, etc). Once in a while the win install goes south, and I have had the SMTP service fail the way you are seeing. When this happens the Exch install will always fail. My normal fix is to start over with a formatted drive and clean OS install (ugg, with the zillion patches that go with it). That's always fixed it for me.

I also would not install Groupshield until after Exch is installed, patched, and running. It may well be interfering with the install process. Even though GS is Exch aware, Exch is quite intollerant of virus scanners. In my experience, shutting down McAfee services doesn't really stop them, just keeps them from taking action, so that won't neccessaraly help you.

With a handle like Penguin, you could always switch to Linux and Sendmail ;-)