Exchange Information Store Failure – 891504

I ran across two clients over the weekend who experienced an unexpected shutdown of the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service on their SBS servers. A quick Google of the specific error turned up a hotfix from Microsoft for the issue ( http://support.microsoft.com/?id=891504). Applying the hotfix resolved the information store crash, but it had one unexpected side effect.

The hotfix for KB891504 requires Exchange 2003 SP1 to be installed on the server. SBS admins know that after installing Exchange 2003 SP1, the post-SP1 update for Exchange needs to be installed on the server as well. One of the fixes in this update is the custom SBS logon page for Outlook Web Access that allows users to log in with only their username, not the typical domain\username format that is standard with Exchagne 2003.

The 891504 update overwrites the custom logon.asp page included with the SBS update and after applying the update, OWA is back to the traditional domain\username logon requirements.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal. Any good system administrator knows, however, that any cahnge to a user’s environment, no matter how small, can become really big really quickly. So I’ve got queries into MS about this hotfix and how to re-SBS OWA after the hotfix has been installed. Updates as they become available.