How do I get WMI working between Vista and Windows 2003 over the Internet using VB.Net?

I have a Windows 2003 server (VPS) running at EUKHost which I have complete control over and I want to see whether I can utilise WMI to manage DNS entries.

I picked up a test program off the internet (see code) and using Visual Studio 2008 ran this from a laptop running Vista.  After 20 secs or so, it reported "The RPC server is unavailable".

I have been liaising with EUKHost over this and they say that port 135 is open.  I have run a simple port scanner testing for connectivity between my laptop and my VPS.  The normal ports are open like 25, 53, 80 and 110 but 135 appears not to be.

I have tried disabling all firewalls in between: my VPS firewall, my broadband router firewall (Orange Livebox) and my personal firewall (Norton 360 v3), alll at the same time, and it makes no difference.

I think I need to focus on checking connectivity between the two computers first and then try to get WMI working.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Dim scope As ManagementScope
Dim options As ConnectionOptions
options = New ConnectionOptions()
options.Username = "<username>"
options.Password = "<password>"
scope = New ManagementScope("\\<ip address>\root\cimv2", options)
scope.Connect()

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