FIX: Error installing Mail Rendering Subsystem printer on NT4 SP5

ZTN1048

ID: ZTN1048

This Zetafax technical note applies to:

• Zetafax 5.5 and later

Symptom

During setup of the mail gateway using the Zetafax Configuration program (ZFSETUP.EXE) you click the Change Server Settings | Mail | Rendering button, Rendering tab and nothing appears to happen. On exiting you get the following error and the only way to exit is to disable the Mail Gateway.

At this point checking the spooler service (using the Services applet in the Control Panel) shows that it is stopped.

Finally, if the e-mail gateway is enabled (eg by starting the spooler service then rerunning the configuration program), the Zetafax server may stop the spooler service if an error occurs rendering a document (which causes it to attempt to reinstall the printer).

This situation is known to occur on NT4 server with service pack 5 or higher applied.

Cause

The behaviour of the NT4 print spooler when restarted was changed in SP5.  Zetafax needs to restart the print spooler when installing printer drivers, and the changed behaviour caused the printer installation code to fail.

Resolution

This is resolved by installing Zetafax version 6.01g of the Mail Rendering Subsystem installation program (INSTFAX).  This is available on the web site http://www.equisys.com/ as a separate download for Zetafax 5.5 or Zetafax 6 users.

Status

This has been corrected in Zetafax version 6.01g.

Last updated: 14 January 2000 (GC/GW)