Issue

Transport agent fails to load:

• You receive the error message "0xC00CE503:   MSG_E_COMMENTSYNTAX   Incorrect syntax was used in a comment"

The cause:

• Microsoft released SP1 for Exchange server 2013, which introduced incorrectly formatted comment in policy configuration files. This causes the Transport agent to fail during loading. This issue occurs when installing ESET Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange Server on a system with Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 SP1 installed, or when updating your Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 with SP1 while already running ESET Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange Server.

Solution

To resolve this issue, apply the following Microsoft hotfix:

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2938053

Prior to the release of this hotfix, the solution was to manually edit an incorrectly formatted comment in two Microsoft Exchange Server policy .cfg files. To use the correct XML formatting, following the steps below:

1. Navigate to one of the following directories (you will need to perform these steps on both files):
         
   C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\policy.8.0.Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Common\v4.0_15.0.847.30__31bf3856ad364e35\Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Common.VersionPolicy.cfg
   
   
   C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\policy.8.0.Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Transport\v4.0_15.0.847.30__31bf3856ad364e35\Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Transport.VersionPolicy.cfg
   
   
2. Right-click the file and select open with → Notepad from the context menu (you can also use a different text editing program, for example, Wordpad).
    
3. Remove the comment <!-- 15.0.847.30 --------------------------------> altogether and click File → Save(alternatively, you can replace it with the following comment: <!-- 15.0.847.30 -->).
    
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for the alternative file from step 1.
    
5. The issue should be resolved once the edits to both files have been saved.