Re: Failed to Create Empty Document

Personally, I'd be looking at corruption in the Administrator profile on the
server rather than something with the MMC. It could be something to do with
Temp under the admin logon since each profile has its own temp directory
under Documents and Settings, so you could try emptying that temp directory.

I'd probably log in locally to the SBS with the user account that works
locally and verify that everything works normally.

It seems to me that you should be able to log in as another user with admin
rights on the server, and delete the Administrator profile from CP ->
System. The server should then recreate a user profile for Administrator at
next login. However, I've never deleted the Administrator profile from a
server before, so I'm not sure if there are any implications in doing so.
Obviously you want to delete only the profile, not the account, and if
there's anything stored in that profile, copy it out before deleting (My
Docs would be one example).

Hopefully clearing out the temp files from the profile might fix it, or the
server might log something helpful when either MMC or remote login fail.


"Xx Licher xX" <XxLicherxX@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:9BF573CA-3234-4611-84D5-6CEE1F3CCE09@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Dave,

I was about to try reinstalling the MMC, when I thought I would give
something a try to see what would happen. I remoted into the server with
another UserID. This time remote desktop worked (It stopped working for
administrator).

After I was logged in successfully, I was able to open MMC.exe and .msc
files. This leads me to beleive the something is possibly messed up with
the
administrator's profile.

Do you think I should still try a reinstall of MMC or does this indicate
that I have an even bigger problem on my hands?

"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" wrote:

I still think I would reinstall the MMC. Trying to fix this with other
means seems to be introducing more problems than it's solving. You could
try installing the newest version of the XML parser, but I haven't seen
anything indicating that as a possible cause of the MMC error. I can't
imagine that a simple MMC snap-in like the event viewer would even use
XML.

Is there some reason why you think reinstalling will generate more
issues?
It seems like it would be pretty straightforward and simple.

How To Upgrade the Microsoft XML Parser
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324460




"Xx Licher xX" <XxLicherxX@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:B5560A89-398F-46D4-992A-145187D45E0C@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Dave,

Thanks again for your response. You are correct in your guess that it
is
the
console and not the snap-ins. I have seen some posts and KB articles
that
suggest that the XML Parser my be at fault. They suggested using
regsvr32.exe
on the following .dll files:

MSXML.DLL
MSXML2.DLL
MSXML3.DLL

I have tried that once, but it didn't solve the problem. I got another
strange error when I went into add/remove programs, that makes me
believe
that something may be messed up with the XML parser:

The title was "Parser Message" and the text was.

"Value creation Failed at Line 5"

Any thoughts?

Thanks


"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" wrote:

Not sure about the reboot after setting the variable. You can open a
command prompt and type "set" without the quotes -> Enter. It'll show
you
what variables are set.

I can't find that KB either and it's not on the TechNet CD. I do find
numerous references in google, so you may be able to find it on the
web
somewhere. My guess is that if MS withdrew it, they no longer think
it
applies.

If you type "mmc" on the run line it'll open an empty console, which
I'm
guessing is where the "empty document" reference comes from. If you
can
open an empty mmc this way, the problem is with the snap-in and not
with
the
mmc itself. Since you're seeing this with multiple snap-ins, I'm
guessing
it is the mmc rather than a corrupt snap-in.

I don't think I'd start copying files or registering DLLs unless you
can
find something pointing to that as a solution.

I don't think you will have any problems with a reinstall of the MMC,
and
I
don't see how you could be worse off anyway. At least theoretically
you
shouldn't have any more disruption than a normal reboot. See:

How to Reinstall the Small Business Server 2003 Consoles
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;829622

"Xx Licher xX" <Xx Licher xX@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message
news:DC3A6D06-5445-4E39-A08B-19925DA32238@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Dave,

I originally posted this thread in another newsgroup, and a coworker
posted
it here.

Yes, I have seen KB 231757. Unfortunately it didn't get me anywhere.
(unless
a reboot was required, but the article didn't mention it)

I have also tried running sfc /scannow, but that didn't solve the
problem
either.

I saw a site that referred me to KB
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=319101, but when I clicked the
link,
it
said the article was not available.

I tried copying the MMC.exe file over from another machine (Win
2003)
that
was not having the problem, but that failed to fix anything.

I have also read somewhere that somewhere there may be a corrupt
registry
key somewhere, but couldn't find anything telling me what key to
check.

Lastly I want to try and reregister some .DLL files related to MMC,
but
I
am
not sure which ones it uses.

I also want to note that it doesn't matter how I try to run
something
with
MMC (Double clicking, Command Prompt, .msc extension, .exe
extension,
etc)
They all result in the same problem.

Also, I was wondering if someone could explain the meaning error I
am
getting, since it doesn't seem logical to me. Consoles such as
server
management or eventviewer have content in them, thus I would not
consider
them empty, so why would MMC try to create an empty document?

Thanks eveyone for your help.



"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" wrote:

Did you find this one? "PRB: MMC: Management Console May Fail to
Start"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;231757

FWIW, I always want a pretty good indication that a reinstall is
going
to
solve my problem - I like to troubleshoot to the point where I
believe
a
reinstall is necessary, rather than to do a reinstall just in the
hope
that
it'll work. If I were in a situation where a reinstall would be as
disruptive as you describe, I'd definitely call PSS first.

"Jeremn" <Jeremn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:969C7BF2-0359-4730-981C-79C2041362E4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Anyone?? I can't be the first person to have seen this. Now the
server
will drop remote desktop requests after you login to it.

=========================
Hi everyone,

We rebooted our server over the weekend to complete some Windows
updates. Now after the reboot, anything that uses Microsoft
Management
Console (MMC) will not work. Instead a warning stating:


"Failed to create empty document"


is displayed. When you click OK, nothing happens. This happens
with
anything requiring a snap in. I have tried "Server Maintenance,
Eventviewer, DNS, Services, etc). All of these give the same
result.


What is weird, is at times we can access MMC related applications
by
connecting to the server via "Remote Desktop Connection"


I read a post that was talking about a similar situation.


http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs/br...



The proposed solution is to reinstall MMC. I want to avoid having
to
resort to this because this is a production server running an ERP
Program/Database and Exchange. Any weirdness that would might
occur
as

a result of a reinstall would cripple us for days. There is also
a
few
differences between the problem in the post above and my problem.


We have also tried rebooting since this happened and this has not
helped.


Does anyone know what I can try to resolve this problem, or what
caused

it in the first place?


Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks












.

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