I installed Service Pack 2 (SP2) for SQL Server 7.0 Standard Edition this weekend on three of our servers running Windows NT Server 4.0 SP6. Two of the installations went fine. On the third server, I can open such utilities as Query Analyzer and SQL Server Profiler, but when I try to open Enterprise Manager (I can see the console in the background), I get the error message that Figure 1 shows. Then, Enterprise Manager hangs, and I have to use Task Manager to end the process. Would reinstalling the client on the server fix the problem? If so, I just want to make sure that reinstalling the client won't affect SQL Server's operation on a production machine. Can the problem originate with a DLL?
Yes, your SP2 installation failed, and now the DLL on this server doesn't match the DLL on the other three servers. The workaround is to copy the correct (SP2) version of semrepl.dll from the SP2 CD-ROM or download location to the correct location (\mssql7\binn by default), then rerun SP2 Setup.