Our existing environment is all 32-bit, Windows 2003 R2 SP2, MOSS 2007 SP1, with the Infrastructure Update and the October Cumulative Updates applied for WSS and MOSS.

We want to migrate to a 64-bit platform, so we provisioned some new 64-bit servers, and installed the x64 binaries for MOSS, with the above updates slipstreamed in, without any problems.

We then ran PSCONFIG on one of the new servers, in order to join it to the farm.

At this point, it throws an exception 1387, failed to connect to the configuration database, so PSCONFIG then exits.

Looking in Central Administration at the Servers in Farm, the new server is now showing up, listed as ‘not configured’, and with a version number matching the existing servers in the farm.

We logged a ticket with PSS, who got us to try various things, including updating the credentials for all the various service accounts using stsadm.exe, forcing an upgrade, etc.

Nothing helped, however…

Whilst in Central Administration, updating the credentials for the various application pools, I noticed that there were a couple of pools / credentials listed relating to Web Apps that were removed ages ago.

(You can use stsadm.exe to manage credentials for Web App pools, but it can’t cope with different accounts for different pools, so you have to use Central Administration if you are running in Least Privilege mode like we are)

A quick google led me to this blog posting, which details how to identify and remove such orphaned configuration objects.

I identified the IDs of the offending pools, and followed the instructions to remove them using stsadm.exe.

I also found that in IIS Manager on my new server, there were pools configured using those orphaned details, despite them not showing on the existing (working) servers.

I can only assume that PSCONFIG read everything (including the orphaned items) and tried applying them, only to get stuck.

Needless to say, having cleared the objects using stsadm.exe, and removed the pools from my new server, my subsequent attempt to join the new server to the farm was a success.