Unable to restart Search Server Express 2008 in a WSS 3.0 Farm

Question

Hi!

One of my customers has a WSS 3.0 Environment. The setup is this:
Server A --> WSS 3.0
Server B --> SQL
Server C --> Outgoing e-mail

There is also SSE 2008 configured in this environment and it has been running perfectly until I had to restart the search services. Now I can't restart it. When I try to perform a search I get an message saying that the SSE 2008 has been configured in a topology that isn't supported by the programs license agreement. More than one server is not allowed.

I know that SSE 208 is not allowed in a farm, but how could it be running neatly until I restarted the search service?
I wasn't the one installing SSE2008 so I don't have the history. I know that the databases has been on a separate SQL server all the time so it must have been a farm even when SSE was installed.

What can I do to get it back on track? Any ideas? Right now there is no search at all, and I really don't want to uninstall SSE since it could give us even more problems...

Do I need to say that I didn't install and configure it? I'm a little lost here..

Thanks in advance!
Jenny

Answer 1

Correction: I can restart the search services, but the search doesn't work. Whenever someone tries to perform a search it just gives a message saying that the SSE 2008 has been configured in a topology that isn't supported by the programs license agreement. More than one server is not allowed.