System Requirements:
- Windows 2000, XP, 2003
The Problem:
When attempting to start the Full Text Catalogue services as part of SQL Server 2000, and trying to start the Microsoft Search service associated with it you receive an Event ID 7003 in the event log
In addition the ‘Full-Text Indexing…’ option in Enterprise manager will remain unavailable.
More Information:
This is happening because there is an unstated dependency in the Service Manager’s dependency list that for whatever reason is not registering or starting on your server.
If you are seeing other service start errors you need to troubleshoot those first, particularly if they involve RPC or NTLM.
A second reason why you may be seeing this is because either your server was installed without, or the server has had removed the “Client for Microsoft Networking” and “File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks” services from the Network interface service and protocol bindings list in the control panel.
A third reason is that the settings for a dependency have become corrupt and need to be replaced/repaired.
The Fix
In my case when I ran into this problem the system was completely missing the Microsoft networking services as it had been installed on a public facing computer. The problem dependency was the NTLM SSP or “NT LanManager Security Support Provider” which is required for SQL communications on non-named-pipe connections. The workstation service is required for named-pipe use incidentally.
The fix is to copy the registry settings for the missing service from a working computer, or in the case of the NTMLSSP copy the following into a .reg and Add it – note that this is the Windows 2000 Server SP4 version and may not be the same on Workstation, XP or 2003.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NtLmSsp]
“Type”=dword:00000020
“Start”=dword:00000003
“ErrorControl”=dword:00000001
“ImagePath”=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,\
74,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,6c,\
00,73,00,61,00,73,00,73,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,00,00
“DisplayName”=”NT LM Security Support Provider”
“ObjectName”=”LocalSystem”
“Description”=”Provides security to remote procedure call (RPC) programs that use transports other than named pipes.”
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NtLmSsp\Security]
“Security”=hex:01,00,14,80,a0,00,00,00,ac,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,30,00,00,00,02,\
00,1c,00,01,00,00,00,02,80,14,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,\
00,00,02,00,70,00,04,00,00,00,00,00,18,00,fd,01,02,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,\
05,12,00,00,00,20,02,00,00,00,00,1c,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,\
20,00,00,00,20,02,00,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,18,00,8d,01,02,00,01,01,00,00,00,\
00,00,05,0b,00,00,00,20,02,00,00,00,00,1c,00,fd,01,02,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,\
00,05,20,00,00,00,23,02,00,00,03,00,00,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,\
00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00
Once imported , reboot the machine and the Microsoft Search Service should start itself right up. Don’t feel tempted to change the service log-on for the Microsoft Search service away from the LocalSystemAccount, it will not work!.