My environment consists of a parent domain with two DCs and no member servers, and a child domain with two DCs and one member server. All the servers are Win2K3 SP2 and all the DCs are DNS servers. Theres a GC in each domain. I forest-prepped and domain-prepped both domains and installed Exchange Server 2003 on one of the child-domain DCs. It works fine. I then installed Exchange Server 2003 on the child domain member server (its actually a one-node cluster) but the Information Store - on that server only - wont start. The errors are first Event ID 1121 Error 0x80004005 connecting to the Microsoft Active Directory and then Event ID 5000 Unable to initialize the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service; Error 0x80004005 The error code 80004005 seems to be a bit generic, but the whole sequence is an indicator of a permission or user-rights issue see here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232060(EXCHG.80).aspx My problem is, that I have checked the group memberships and user rights over and over again and I am pretty certain they are all as they should be. NetDIAG and DCDiag complete with no errors logged. The services run fine on the DC in the same domain, it is only the member server that has a problem. To simplify things I am running all the services under Local System Account (this is a lab setup). The child domain in its entirety is running on Virtual Server 2005 R2, but I dont see anywhere that that should cause any problems. Can anyone suggest what else I need to look at?

Dear customer: To proper assist you to troubleshoot the issue, please help collect the following information: 1. I noticed you mentioned its actually a one-node cluster. What does it mean? Did you install Exchange server 2003 on a Windows cluster in child domain? 2. On your Exchange server, save the application log as .evt file, and send it to v-rocwan@microsoft.com. 3. Run policytest utility on Exchange server 2003 in child domain, and post the result to the forum. For more information about policytest utility, please refer to the following documents: XADM: Description of the Policytest.exe Utility http://support.microsoft.com/kb/281537 4. Collect EXBPA log file and send it to me for analyze. a) Download the EXBPA tool from the following link, and then install this tool on your Exchange server. Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyzer v2.8 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=dbab201f-4bee-4943-ac22-e2ddbd258df3&displaylang=en b) Open EXBPA, Connect to Active Directory; c) Input the name of DC; make sure you are using Exchange Administrator account and Domain User account d) Click "Connect to the Active Directory Server" e) Select entire Organization as the Scan Scope, type "Health Check" f) Click "Start Scanning" g) When the scan finishes, Click "View a report" in the left pane and click the report in the right pane h) Click "Export report", select the type as XML (will save entire data file). i) Compress the XML and send it to v-rocwan@microsoft.com. Additionally, you can try the following methods to fix the issue. 1. Remove the cluster components on the Exchange server, 2. Restart it and check the effect. Hope it helps. Rock Wang - MSFT