Problem starting Microsoft Exchange internet mail service

[bkchaitanya]

Hi,

We have a compaq proliant 3000 server which is being used as a exchange mail server.In that while trying it to bring up the Microsoft Exchange internet mail service it is throwing an error 2140.
Any idea why this error is coming?
Any suggestions will be of great help.

Regards
krishna

[DennisCThornton]

Krishna,
You should post more information if you want help. Such as the OS, service packs, the version of Exchange, service packs, your configuration, etc.

[bkchaitanya]

Hi,

OS running is Windows NT.
Version of Exchange is 5.5
In the event viewer it is giving the following message when i try to start the IMS service
"The internet mail service administrator account is no longer valid.The Internet mail service will not start until you recreate the administrator account or configure the Internet mail service to use another administrator account"
How to process the above the requests?
In case if we recreate the administrator account then will it effect other services?
If we have to create another administrator account for IMS to use then how to do that?

[DennisCThornton]

I'm not familiar with 5.5 but I can take a shot at it.

Probably under properties for the IMS is where you define what administrator account it will use. You can create a new account in your domain or use an existing one. Just guessing, but your problem is probably that a password was changed and all you need to do is change the password in Exchange so it matched the one in the domain.

One common policy that many companies use is to set up utility admin accounts that are used for specific tasks. IE service_admin that is then used for services only. Then, if/when it is changed all the services/applications that use this account are checked/updated with the new password. Of course all this should be documented so when planning a change you can easily determine what can/will be affected.