I think I have found the problem...at least I can recreate it. I took a VM and installed SQL 2000 and ran SP4. I am running version 2039 as expected. So I was trying to figure out where 2050 was coming from and I figured that it was being pushed from our internal WSUS box. Sure enough I can install Hotfix build 2148 ontop of SP4 without any issues. I then tried to remove Hotfix 2148, reboot the server, and then apply Hotfix build 2050 manually. Then I tried to apply Hotfix update 2148 and I have the same issue as I described above. It looks like the update that is being pushed from our WSUS server KB948110 Hotfix update 2050 to any SQL 2000 server is causing an issue. Has anyone had this problem before?