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[newbie Michael]

In the Release Notes for MSDE 2000 SP3a is following information:
"Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000) SP3a provides merge modules to support existing applications that use merge modules. The Setup utilities for new applications should be written to call the MSDE 2000 Setup utility instead of directly consuming the MSDE 2000 merge modules. "

The problem is that we are trying to use merge modules... could anyone explain me why we shouldn't do this (coz this is not explained in the release notes) or how to do this??

[Stefan Krueger]

If you install MSDE using the merge modules, you cannot use hotfixes released by Microsoft to update it. This was a big problem when the SQL Slammer worm appeared. Instead you need to create an updated version of your setup using the newest merge modules, and send that as an update to your customers. This has to be done by each company that distributes MSDE using the merge module. This is causing a serious delay for applying the security fix.

Another reason why you shouldn't use the merge modules is the multitude of bugs and problems with these modules.