Merlin_666

Your Exchange server is most probably being used as relay server. Check your firewall or router settings and see what open ports you have and to where they redirect.Also check as your server is not exposed as a DMZ.

Doe your xp accounts have a password - xp doesn't allow network access with blank password accounts. if you write in the ME box's explorer \\xp_pc_IP_adress\ whats the result?

It happens more often then you might think. Try a fabric mouse pad - no plastic, just anything plain non reflective.

Is your sound onboard or a pci card ? If its onboard you need to know what motherboard you have (manufacturer and model).

I have installed SP1 RC in two pcs and as for now i haven't detected any major glitches (although didn't had much time for testing). One is an HP ML350 G4 server acting as PDC with 24 clients running XP and w2k.The other is my own PC at home ML 350 Specs: - 2x Intel Xeon 3.2Ghz EMT64 - 1M L2 - Intel E7520 Chipset - 2GB Ram (PC2700 ECC Reg) - HP Smart Array 641 - 64mb cache - 5x 72.4Gb U320 10.000rpm SCSI (1+0 raid array w/1 spare) - 2x 1G Nics (the onboard one + NC7771 Pci-X) - 1x HP Ultrium 215 backup drive - Redudant Power and fans ... and the rest of usual stuff. It as Veritas 9.1 for Windows Servers for the backups and everyone works with sales and account software based on Access type databases. Most of the databases have almost 1Gb so in about a month they will be migrated to SQL. Hardware works flawlessly with the 2 nics in a team providing 2G bandwith. There are some minor problems like the MMC console reporting errors after being closed and more strangely sometimes after a reboot it reports an error right after logon without even opening it. There are some new domain policies for XP SP2 - nothing much. In DHCP console i can't manage to make stick to the "Update Statistics" and "Show BOOTP" options - they only remain until its closed, next opening they are not selected anymore. I did had one major problem with a roaming profile which started by simply disapearing after 2 days (not all, most of the documents and some folders on the Desktop and in My Docs folder). After putting them back from a backup weird things kept happenig, like erased documents reapering after a reboot and altered docs returning to any previous random state. It looked like a sync problem so erased the entire profile from the server and from the pcs who ever used it and started it from scratch - no complaints after 5 days now. I noticed 2 more things i hadn't the time to look into :the reverse DNS zone isn't up[censored] and forwarding queries to the router makes the clients to take ages to connect to internet. Disabling forwarding and making it secondary DNS server in DHCP scope options resolves the problem, Sharepoint Services works well. HP Insight software doesn't - it needs some kind of update so i just took it off. As my home pc i can only say that at least all the hardware works fine with win2003 SP1 RC and thats alot because my pc looks like a biohazard experiment from Doom3 Specs: - AMD Athlon XP 2600+ - Abit KT7A w/raid - doesn't supports the processor but its working with a modded bios despite the fact that detects it as unknown processor type but with the correct speed. - 768Mb Ram - 3 IDE disks (2x80Gb 1x20Gb) connected to Highpoint controller - 3 SCSI disks (36,18,9GB) connected to an Adaptec 39160. - 1 Plextor PX-708A DVDRW, 1 PX-116A DVD & 1 Asus E612 connected to the VIA onboard IDE - 1 Plextor Ultraplex 40x SCSI CDROM & 1 HP9200i connected to the secondary channel of the Adaptec 39160 - 2 Intel 100mb nics (Pro/100 S & Pro/100+ Manag) - 1 Creative Audigy ZS - 1 Pinnacle PCTV Pro tv card Everything works fine w/2003 SP1 RC.Haven't had the time to do more testing. My conclusion : nothing realy new, and some holes to fix. I'll keep you posted of any new discoveries.

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

have you checked your board BIOS to make it boot from the CD-Rom as the 1st boot device? Is you XP cd bootable or in good conditions? Have you tried it in another PC?

In Recipient policy check if your domain name is set as the Primary. In the User menu go to "EMail Addresses" and set the external domain as Primary, uncheck the "Automatically update Email addresses based on recipient policy" or your return address will not be correct. Apply to all users one by one Restart IIS with iisreset.

Have you tried accessing directly to the server from the vpn using \\server_name or \\server_IP. Does it works ?

Do you have any Antivirus installed ? There are some AV who block port 25 by default to avoid spam spread - McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.0i is one of those.