BE 12.5 "resource credentials" "a communications failure has occurred."

[PWMerner]

A fresh install of BE 12.5 sp4 on SBS 2003 sp2 with ISA installed but not Exchange is able to create Backup to Disk folders on local and remote drives in a Windows domain but any attempt to access these folders by BE results in the error "The operation failed to acquire the minumum number of drives and media needed". The default BE logon account has domain and enterprise admin privileges but any attempt to "test" the connections under Job Properties/Credentials results in an application crash.

Running native NTBackup succeeds for both local and remote drives while running under a domain admin account. I am having trouble imagining what part of BE is stumbling here.

This problem was resolved by manually uninstalling all instances of SQL Server and BE following the instructions in Symantec document 314156, updating the SBS 2003 R2 OS, and reinstalling a fresh instance of MSXML. The required instance of SQL Server Express 2005 needed to be done manually from the SQL folder on the BE installation disk. Any one reading this with the same problem should be advised that extreme care must be observed during the required modifications to the OS registry. I made several mistakes myself in the process and overall it took nearly 40 hours of very concentrated effort.

[PWMerner]

I ran across some comments in a different forum suggesting that the file ntdll.dll, were it to have become corrupt, could account for a failure of the SQL job engine that BE 12.5 uses and therefore create communications problems similar to what I continue to experience. Does anyone have a clue as to how I can verify the integrity of this file. It shows up in System32 and in the cache as version 5.2.3790.4455 with annotation srv03_sp2_gdr, with size 774,144 bytes and date of creation 4/23/07 .