Update on Office Communications Server 2007 R2 services stuck at 'Starting' with Server 2008

A few months ago I detailed about a problem with OCS services not starting after a reboot, a general loss of network connectivity during boot and the inability to RDP to those servers once this scenario was triggered.

I bumped into a new article from a Paul Adams at MS that has a handy PowerShell script to add in the workaround for the deadlock problem. It is also noted, just from general banter on the Internet, forums and newsgroups, that the OCS servers involved are typically HP servers that used the SmartStart CD/DVD for installation. It could be that HP agents, drivers or services added to the base OS are causing this issue to flare up. Any OCS servers I have seen, so far, that had this problem were HP servers.

The PowerShell script can be downloaded from here, and it refers to an earlier post by the same author detailing the technical reasons as to why and how it can happen. Ideally, I'm hoping a more generic/official fix for it becomes available from Microsoft at some point for the OS. OCS unfortunately is just a possible trigger for this issue, and the issue comes from the underlying operating system.

Update: In a weird twist of fate, this issue/bug does not exist with Server 2008 R2, but OCS 2007 R2 isn't supported under Server 2008 R2 yet.