Sophos Enterprise Console - Stuck on Connecting to Server

I have a problem on an SBS 2003 Premium Edition box (2 NICs and running ISA Server) where launching the Enterprise Console sits forever at the connection screen.



This is the same problem even if I perform a console-only install to a separate box.

The drastic remedy is to reboot the server. By using the console on a separate box I was able to use TCPView to find that EnterpriseConsole.exe was connecting to MgntSvc.exe on the server.

I then tried stopping the service from the command line:

> net stop "Sophos Management Service"

Which resulted in me being told that the service could not be stopped. I then used PsKill to stop the service:

> pskill "Sophos Management Service"

And I then restarted the service:

> net start "Sophos Management Service"

This then allowed me to successfully use the Enterprise Console.

MSDE2000 Installation Error on Windows 2003 DCs

Well I've just spent the last few hours trying to install Sophos Enterprise Console 1.0 on 3 Windows Server 2003 systems. One of the server installs worked just fine and the other two failed with the following message:

Error 3500. The custom action "InstallMSDE" failed with the following error: Fatal error during installation. 1603

A Google search using "sophos error 3500" yielded nothing useful. A search of "sophos error 1603" proved more valuable. It pointed me in the direction of looking in the MSDE install log (C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\SophosMSDEInstaller.log in this case). The line of interest was:

InstallSQLAgentSecurity failed (SERVER02,LocalSystem,87).

A Google search for "InstallSQLAgentSecurity failed" then yielded "Backup Exec 9.x or 10.0 for Windows Servers fails to install ..." which detailed the exact problem, but with Veritas Backup Exec 9.x/10.x.

One of the links included in this document was "PRB: The MSDE Installation Does Not Succeed If the Installation Computer Is Running Terminal Services in Application Server Mode".
The problem with this was I wasn't meeting all the criteria - I was using VNC to remotely install the software after it failed first time. Long experience with software installation on a W2K3 system even when accessing the console session over RDP has resulted in VNC being installed on my W2K3 systems.
Further wading through the Google result set then gave me this: "Solution for the WSUS/WMSDE install error"

This accurately described my problem - MSDE failing with the same error. Not only that, but it explained why one of my servers installed Sophos Enterprise Console correctly - it was the one with the FSMO roles! I excitely followed the instructions in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article titled "How to view and transfer FSMO roles in Windows Server 2003" and yay! A successful installation.
Performed the FSMO transfer again on the third server, then went home for much needed food and sleep.
Must allocate some time for the next time I need to do this to see exactly which FSMO role needs transferring.