Mozilla Thunderbird causes issues with Exchange?
I haven't seen this issue before, but just heard a report of it today. Apparently, if you install portions of Mozilla's suite (esp. Thunderbird) on your Exchange server [1], it will cause issues with Exchange services starting and will cause Exchange System Manager to crash upon opening. That's obviously not a good thing. Event logs for the error generated by System Manager would be similar to the following:

Faulting application exadmin.dll, version 6.5.7226.0, stamp 406d1e32, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 5.2.3790.0, stamp 3e802494, debug? 0, fault address 0x000249d3.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Microsoft Exchange Server
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 3/28/2005
Time: 10:58:20 AM
User: N/A
Computer: EXCHANGE SERVER
Description:
Faulting application exadmin.dll, version 6.5.7226.0, stamp 406d1e32, faulting module kernel32.dll, version 5.2.3790.0, stamp 3e802494, debug? 0, fault address 0x000249d3.

The apparent cause ended up being that Mozilla was replacing the default mapi32.dll file with it's own version and placing it in the \windows \system32 directory. The fix was to delete the mapi32.dll file that Mozilla placed in there and replace it with mapi32-moz-bak.dll (the backup copy Mozilla makes of the current mapi32.dll), then restarting the Exchange services.

[1] I'm not sure why one would put a 3rd party e-mail client on their Exchange server, but I suppose that's besides the point. For now, just be aware that this is a potential/probable issue if you install some or all portions of Mozilla's suite.
- posted by Ben Winzenz @ 2:08 PM