MS Exchange MTA Service and Event 2000

Earlier this week I encountered an alert in Operations Manager 2007 from a managed client’s Exchange server with Event ID 2000 which stated:

Verify that the Microsoft Exchange MTA service has started.  Consecutive ma-open calls are failing with error 3051.

I knew that the Microsoft Exchange MTA service was not in use in the client environment as it is not necessary in a single-Exchange server organization.  The service was in a ”Disabled” state but this did not prevent the alerts.

My research led me to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 810489  which confirmed that stopping and disabling the service was not enough to resolve the problem.  Two registry entries must be created on the Exchange server for each public or private database as follows:

1. Click on Start > Run and type regedit in the textbox and click the OK button.
2. In Registry Editor, navigate to the following key:  HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ServerName.  Take the following actions on each private or public database that is listed under this key.
3. Right-click on the database and select New > DWord Value from the pop-up menu.  Name the value Gateway In Threads.
4. Set the Gateway In Threads value to 0 (zero).
5. Right-click on the database and select New > DWord Value from the pop-up menu.  Name the value Gateway Out Threads.
6. Set the Gateway Out Threads value to 0 (zero).
7. Restart the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service to enable the changes.

The Gateway In Threads and Gateway Out Threads values should also be set on any new databases created on the server.