After an Application Center 2000 synchronization is complete, the Synchronizations report shows that the synchronization was partially successful and that one error occurred. The application event log shows the following entry:

Event ID: 5055
Source: Application Center
Description: Could not open object
Event Type: Error
Application Center could not open the object %WINDIR%\System32\inetsrv\asp.dll during session %ReplicationID% and job %ReplicationJobID%. Status is 0x80070057. The parameter is incorrect.

The dump file of the Internet Information Services (IIS) metabase shows the following in the ScriptMaps section:

The problem occurs because the WINDIR variable is used to identify the path of the Asp.dll file.

To correct the problem, hard code the path of C:\winnt\system32\inetsrv\asp.dll as follows:

1. Open Internet Information Services Microsoft Management Console (IIS MMC).
2. In the right pane, expand the Internet Information Services node.
3. Right-click the node of the server name, and then click Properties.
4. Under Master Properties, make sure that WWW Service is selected.
5. Click Edit in the Master Properties section.
6. Click the Home Directory tab, and then click Configuration.
7. Under Application Mappings, find and select the entry for the .asp extension, and then click Edit.
8. In the Executable box, replace the reference to the WINDIR variable with the path of the operating system, for example, C:\WINNT, followed by the path of the Asp.dll file, and then click OK.
9. Repeat step 7 and step 8 for each different extension that has a path that is mapped to the WINDIR variable instead of to the actual system path.
10. After all the references to the WINDIR variable have been replaced, click OK to apply the changes and to try a deployment.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.