SBS 2000 Shared Fax Printer

After deleting the Shared Fax printer in SBS 2000, you are unable to reinstall it.

This can be done only by reinstalling the Shared Fax Service through the "add/remove program" in control panel, and choosing the "Small Business Server 2000" and "Change/remove" button.

Easy, or not?

The procedure of reinstallation of the shared fax component shows a generic error and does not complete.

Here is a workaround:

WARNING: some reboots can be expected or necessary (one of these came unexpectedly as automatic reboot after executing the insmsiw.exe package).


This is due to the incorrect version of the Microsoft installer present on the server.

This can be checked by examining the date of the c:\winnt\system32\msi.dll

If it's dated 2007 you have installed (or received through windows update) Windows Installer 3.1.
Uninstall it from control panel (you can install it back later).

After that you should check again te date of msi.dll

If it's dated 2003 then this is the version included in Windows 2000 Service Pack 4.

You have to restore the version included on CD 2 of SBS2000 (dated 1999(!)) as an executable installer named instmsiw.exe located under the folder of the Shared Fax Installation.

Unfortunately (?) Windows 2000 has a System file protection mechanism, so you can't symply launch the instmsiw.exe to obtain the downgrade. Whenever you rename and install a different version of any system dll, it is replaced with an archived copy of the current/correct version.

To achieve the downgrade follow these steps.

Launch instmsiw.exe /? to obtain the switches necessary to extract the files to a temp folder on your hd, and do it...
There you will find the following dlls:
msi.dll
msihnd.dll
msiexec.exe
dated 1999.

Now open a command prompt reach the folder c:\winnt\system32\dllcache
and rename the .dll and .exe files named as above with .new extension (or wathever you like).

through windows explorer locate the folder c:\winnt\system32\servicepackfiles and rename it temporarily as you like.

Open a command prompt, reach the system32 folder and rename the current .dll and .exe dated 2007 or 2003 with .new extension (or wathever you like).

now copy the three above mentioned files dated 1999 from the temporary folder to the system32 folder.
the system may warn you about the alteration of a system file with an older version: this is a good thing, just tell him to ignore it.

Reboot.

You can now launch the change/remove procedure of sbs2000 in control panel\add/remove programs applet and succesfully reinstall you shared fax service along the mithic "Shared Fax" printer.

After that you can rename back the servicepackfiles folder and reinstall the windows installer 3.1

What a mess, for a fax printer!