Unable to Serve ASP or HTML Pages (257267)

SYMPTOMS

After you install Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0, and you browse ASP or HTML pages from the console of the Web server or another workstation on the network, the Web service may return the following error message:

HTTP 500 - Server Application Error

The Default Web Site may be in a Running state. If you run the netstat -an command from a command prompt, you may notice that the Web server's IP address is listening on TCP port 80, which is the default HTTP port.

NOTE: When you are troubleshooting problems using the Advanced Internet Options in Internet Explorer 5.0, more descriptive error messages are usually returned by disabling the Show friendly HTTP error messages option. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

218155 Description of Hypertext Transport Protocol Error Messages

The following items may appear in the Event Viewer on the IIS 5.0 computer:

Application Log: COM+ error with Event ID 4099
System Log: W3SVC error with Event ID 59
System Log: W3SVC warning with Event ID 36.

The Iis5.log file (located in the WINNT folder) may contain the following error message:

0x8004e00f=COM+ was unable to talk to the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator

When you try to open the Component Services snap-in, which is used for COM+ administration, the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) may stop responding.

CAUSE

Internet Information Services 5.0 relies on COM+, which in turn relies on the Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) service for functionality. The DTC version-checking feature, included in versions of SQL Server that were developed prior to Windows 2000, does not recognize the version properties used by Windows 2000. As a result, the SQL Server DTC Setup utility removes the DTC service installed by Windows 2000. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

249310 BUG: Installing SQL Server on Windows 2000 Uninstalls DTC Service

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, perform the following steps:

Verify that the version number of the Dtcsetup.exe application (located in the c:\Winnt\System32 directory by default) is 1999.9.3422.24 or later.
Run the Dtcsetup.exe application to install the DTC service.
Start the DTC service.
In Control Panel, double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon.
Select Add/Remove Windows Components, remove Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0, and then reinstall it from the Windows 2000 CD.

MORE INFORMATION

The Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) 1.0 is a fully functional version of SQL Server 7.0, but is limited to five concurrent connections. Because MSDE and SQL Server 7.0 share the same code base, when you install MSDE 1.0 on a computer running Windows 2000, the DTC service is removed. MSDE is available from the following locations:

Downloadable from the Microsoft Visual Studio site.
Downloadable from the MSDN Universal Subscription site or on the MSDN Universal Subscription CD.
Installed with the Office Server Extensions, included with the Microsoft Office 2000 Premium and Developer Editions.

The following Knowledge Base articles provide more information related to the topics discussed in this article: