Project Server 2007 : Queue system could not start

If your project server 2007 deployment use a different account for the farm service and Shared Service Provider (SSP), you might face some problem with the Project Server Queue Service.


By default, the Project Server Queue Service run under the account that is used for the farm service. If your queue job cannot be processed and you see the following message in Event Viewer :

Queue system could not start. SSP: {guid}.

Try change the Project Server Queue Service account to the one that is used to run the Shared Service Provider.


Go to Services and change the Microsoft Office Project Server Queue Service service account to the account that is used to run the SSP.

Licensing Requirement to Install Reporting Service on separate server

I was asked if the SQL Server Reporting Service is installed in a separate server from where the SQL Server database engine is installed, does it need another SQL Server license?

Although I am not a licensing expert (and not many people seem to be able to understand Microsoft Licensing scheme), but I can confidently say Yes to the question above.

The answer lies in the following document:

Licensing Doc

In the above scenario, you need two SQL Server license.

I hope Microsoft can be more open and clear in communicating licensing issue and requirement in the future. It will be good if they can include some of the common deployment scenario for their software together with the licensing requirement in Technet.

Disable Windows Server Shutdown Reason

Windows Server 2003 and 2008 require you to specify a reason everytime you shutdown your server. If you are using Windows Server as your workstation like me, you may find this a bit annoying. Luckily, There is a way to disable it.

To disable the shut down reason,
1) run gpedit.msc. This will start the Local Group Policy Editor.
2) Go to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System.
3) Look for 'Display Shutdown Event Tracker'. Then set it to Disabled

Project 2007 error : "Could not retrieve Enteprise Global Template"

When I try to connect the Project 2007 to Project Server for one of my user few days ago, I got an error from MS Project: "Could not retrieve Enteprise Global Template".

After some googling, Google for "Could not retrieve Enteprise Global Template", I cann't find a sympton and solution that match my situation.

After some diagnosis and reproduction, I manage to isolate the problem into a case that this error only happen for that user on his computer. I recall that this user has just migrated his profile when he join his computer from workgroup into domain.

It turn out that after the profile migration, his MS Project cache location is pointing to a location that he currently do not have permission to access anymore. This cause MS Project to fail everytime when it need to retrieve the Enterprise Global Template from the cache.

This setting is stored in registry. The solution is to remove the setting from the registry and restart MS Project. Remove the following registry key: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\MS Project\Settings:CacheLocation

,then restart MS Project.