Documenting a minor MSMQ bug using Distribution Lists in PROPID_M_RESP_FORMAT_NAME

It's official - this blog is where Microsoft now goes for publishing bug reports.

This bug is one you are very unlikely to encounter - you have to be using Distribution Lists in PROPID_M_RESP_FORMAT_NAME which is quite a rare design choice.

The documentation for PROPID_M_RESP_FORMAT_NAME states:

Sets of response queues can be specified using the following format names.

  • Distribution list format names are used to reference response queues based on a public distribution list that is published in the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS). 
  • Multicast address format names are used to reference response queues that are associated with a specific multicast address.
  • Multiple-element format names are used to reference response queues based on a private list of destination queues.  

Due to a bug, the first bullet point no longer applies.

If you try sending a message using a Distribution List for the response queue, MSMQ will return MQ_ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER.

The workaround is to take all the addresses from the distribution list and create a Multiple-Element Format Name with them instead. 

For information on the different syntaxes, see: