Exchange Management Pack: DCOM Failed to create the object 'EMPKP.PubKeyPublisher' (924209)

SYMPTOMS

The DCOM event 10000 indicates the application could not start, most likely a problem with the path or name of the application (notice the "valid Win32 application" in the event). To verify open regedt32 on the Exchange server and search for the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{94A6DCD0-B6F5-40E8-8C9D-CEE2C7796380}\LocalServer32

There will be a default value that points to the DCOM application that failed to start. The normal value will be something similar to:

C:\PROGRA~1\Exchsrvr\bin\empkp.exe

with the drive letter changing according to the install path of the Exchange Binary files. This is 8.3 file naming convention. For this particular customer, the value was:

D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\BIN\empkp.exe

Since there was a space in this path, DCOM could not resolve the location of the application. Once the customer encapsulated the path in double quotes the DCOM application started as expected and script "Exchange - Publish ExMP Data" ran as expected.

Note that in addition to the EMPKP application, there are other "helper" files that are installed when Exchange 2003 is installed. In the customer's case these other DCOM applications also failed to start because of the same problem. Look for the DCOM errors in the system event log for the GUID and path of the failing applications.

RESOLUTION

Exchange 2003 SP1 server running on Windows 2003.
MOM 2005 deployed to monitor server in the organization.
Exchange 2003 Management Pack for MOM 2005 successfully deployed.

The following event is logged on MOM server:

Description: Failed to create the object 'EMPKP.PubKeyPublisher'.

This event was generated by the script: "Exchange - Publish ExMP Data"
Domain: DOMAINNAME 
Computer: SERVERNAME
Time: 4/1/2005 2:54:22 PM 
Type: Error 
Provider Name: Script-generated Data 
Event Number: 10001 
Provider Type: Generic Provider 
Source: Exchange MOM

EMPKP is a DCOM application that generates the registry keys used to store the encrypted account/password for the Mailbox Access Account, which is used for MAPI logon to monitored mailboxes on Exchange servers to verify mailbox availability. In addition in the system event log on the exchange server, the following event was logged:

Event ID 10000
Source DCOM
Description: Unable to start a DCOM Server: {94A6DCD0-B6F5-40E8-8C9D-CEE2C7796380}. 
The error:
"D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\BIN\empkp.exe -Embedding is not a valid Win32 
application. "
Happened while starting this command: D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\BIN\empkp.exe -Embedding

DISCLAIMER

MICROSOFT AND/OR ITS RESPECTIVE SUPPLIERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE DOCUMENTS AND RELATED GRAPHICS PUBLISHED ON THIS WEBSITE FOR ANY PURPOSE. THE DOCUMENTS AND RELATED GRAPHICS PUBLISHED ON THIS WEBSITE COULD INCLUDE TECHNICAL INACCURACIES OR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. CHANGES ARE PERIODICALLY ADDED TO THE INFORMATION HEREIN. MICROSOFT AND/OR ITS RESPECTIVE SUPPLIERS MAY MAKE IMPROVEMENTS AND/OR CHANGES IN THE PRODUCT(S) AND/OR THE PROGRAM(S) DESCRIBED HEREIN AT ANY TIME.

For more information on the terms of use, click on the link below:
http://support.microsoft.com/tou/