Question

Win32: The RPC Server is unavailable.

Asked by: KCATA

Unable to get WMI working on most XP machines.  Been at this a while now so going to try to recount everything I've tried so far.  As a test of connectivity I'm simply going into Manage - Connect to another computer - and then under that computer trying to view the WMI Control properties.  It opens with a window saying "Win32: The RPC Server is unavailable."

In looking up info on the net I've found several potential problems that could cause this but believe I have eliminated them all.  1)  Firewall... XP firewall is disabled on all machines (have also disabled live virus scanner just to be sure).  2) Ensured that I have local admin rights on both my computer and the computer I am attempting to conenct to.  3)  ran dcomcnfg on remote machine and added full rights for myself under Components - Computers - My Computer - Properties - COM Security and Launch and Activaton permissions.  4)  Verified that RPC, DCOM and WMI services are running.

At this point I'm really at a loss.  Same eror occurs trying to connect from my XP machine to a remote XP machine or from a Win2003 server to a remote XP machine.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

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Asked On
2007-05-18 at 12:29:19ID22581520
Tags

rpc

,

server

,

unavailable

Topics

DCOM

,

Windows XP Operating System

,

Windows Network Security

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
10

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Answers

 

by: orangutangPosted on 2007-05-18 at 12:52:08ID: 19118028

Is the service running? Open your start menu, click "Run...", type "services.msc", and check if "Remote Procedure Call (RPC)" is running.

 

by: KCATAPosted on 2007-05-18 at 12:54:00ID: 19118038

Yes indeed. (see #4 above ;-)  )

 

by: orangutangPosted on 2007-05-18 at 12:56:43ID: 19118053

Oh, sorry. Hmm, that's very weird why it would say it's unavailable but running. Try:
http://www.ee-stuff.com/Expert/Upload/getFile.php?fid=3223

 

by: orangutangPosted on 2007-05-18 at 12:58:29ID: 19118060

 

by: KCATAPosted on 2007-05-18 at 13:00:01ID: 19118069

You suggest running that file on the remote computer or the one I'm connecting from or both?

 

by: orangutangPosted on 2007-05-18 at 13:14:16ID: 19118154

Oh, well, I don't know much about remote computers but you're supposed to run the files from whatever computer has that problem.

 

by: KCATAPosted on 2007-05-18 at 13:28:53ID: 19118228

Brilliant!  Thanks that worked like a champ.  Can you explain what exactly those reg files modify?  Trying to figure out where the problem was to begin with.

 

by: orangutangPosted on 2007-05-18 at 13:41:20ID: 19118294

Unfortunately, those are some pretty old file that I found a while ago for Windows 2000. So I sure hope it doesn't do anything bad to Windows XP. Basically, what it does is, it resets the registry keys for the RPC service to the default. Also, if you have any problems, you could export the:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\LEGACY_RPCSS
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\RpcLocator
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\RpcSs
registry keys from the working computers and import them into the non-working computers.

 

by: KCATAPosted on 2007-05-18 at 13:43:48ID: 19118305

Will definately look into that.  Thanks again!

 

by: AbIg0r6Posted on 2008-08-25 at 02:35:46ID: 22304188

had the same problem a while ago, so i turn off windows firewall on the target machine...and now it works
just fine

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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