Microsoft KB Archive/888824

Knowledge Base

You receive a "Failed to open the Group Policy object" error message, and Event ID 1000 and Event ID 1001 are logged when you try to change Group Policy settings in Small Business Server 2000 with Service Pack 1

Article ID: 888824

Article Last Modified on 10/30/2006

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APPLIES TO

• Microsoft BackOffice Small Business Server 2000 Service Pack 1

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Important This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

SYMPTOMS

When you try to change Group Policy settings on a computer that is running Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) 2000 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), you may receive an error message that is similar to one of the following messages.

Error message 1

Failed to open the Group Policy object. You may not have appropriate rights.

Details:
The system cannot find the path specified.

Error message 2

Failed to open the Group Policy object. You may not have appropriate rights.

Details:
Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller, either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied.

Additionally, the following events may appear in the Application log every five minutes: Type: Error
Event ID: 1000
Source: Userenv
Category: None
Description: Windows cannot access the registry information at \\DomainName\sysvol\DomainName\Policies\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9} with (53). "Path not found".

Type: Error
Event ID: 1001
Source: SceCli
Category: None
Description: Security policy cannot be propagated. Cannot access the template. Error code =3. \\DomainName\sysvol\DomainName\Policies\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}\Machine\Microsoft\Windows NT\SecEdit\GptTmpl.inf.

Type: Error
Event ID: 1000
Source: Userenv
Category: None
Description: The Group Policy client-side extension Security was passed flags (17) and returned a failure status code of (3).

CAUSE

When you install Small Business Server 2000 SP1, the direct hosting of the server message block (SMB) protocol over TCP/IP is disabled. This may cause the problem described in the "Symptoms" section.

RESOLUTION

Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To resolve this problem, change the SMBDeviceEnabled registry value to 1. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBT\Parameters

3. In the right pane, double-click SMBDeviceEnabled.
4. Type 1 in the Value data box, click Decimal, and then click OK.
5. Close Registry Editor.
6. Restart the computer.

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

253268 Group Policy error message when appropriate Sysvol contents are missing

271213 Event ID 1000 and 1001 repeat every 5 minutes in the event log

Keywords: kbgpo kbgrppolicyprob kbtshoot kbprb KB888824

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