XFOR: Err Msg: The Remote Access Service Phone Book Cannot be Opened (196306)

SYMPTOMS

When you click the Dial-Up Connections tab in the properties for the Internet Mail Service or Internet Mail Connector, the following error message may be displayed:

The Remote Access Service (RAS) phone book cannot be opened. It must be
accessible and in the system directory as \winnt\system32\ras\
rasphone.pbk.

In addition, the following event may appear in the event log:

   Event: 4106
   Source: MSExchangeIMC
   Category: SMTP Interface Event
   Description: The dial-up connection "<phonebook>" could not be made.
   The error reported was [5]. Access denied.

Where <phonebook> is a Dial-Up Networking phonebook entry. Note that if you attempt to manually establish a connection using the Dial-Up Networking phonebook entry, you are able to do so.

CAUSE

The Internet Mail Service or Internet Mail Connector is unable to access the Rasphone.pbk file in the Winnt\System32\Ras folder. This can occur for either of the following reasons:

The file is missing or damaged.
The Microsoft Windows NT Server administrative shares have been removed from the Microsoft Exchange Server computer.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, perform the following steps:

Verify that the Rasphone.pbk file exists in the Winnt\System32\Ras folder.
Recreate the Windows NT Server administrative shares. For information about how to do so, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
155345 How To Re-Create Administrative Shares in Windows NT

MORE INFORMATION

When you click the Dial-Up Connections tab in the properties for the Internet Mail Service or Internet Mail Connector, the Imcadmin.dll dynamic- link library (DLL) attempts to open the Rasphone.pbk file located in the following folder:

\\<server>\Admin$\System32\Ras

Where <server> is the name of the Exchange Server computer. If the Rasphone.pbk file does not exist in this folder or the Admin$ share has been removed, Imcadmin.dll is unable to open the file.