We have been using remote assistance for a while and I had the group policied enabled to allow offer remote assistance. It has recently stopped working and we have found the solution to be turning off the filewall on a users pc, then turning it back on, and it then works to this persons pc. We did recently change ip ranges on users pcs but the group policies allow ports not ip addresses. Any thoughts on how to fix this whithout going to every pc and turning off the filewall and then back on, or even why this would fix it. Thanks Steve

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456978.aspx I'm going to move this thread to a more appropriate forum.Kevin Remde US IT Evangelism - Microsoft Corporation http://blogs.technet.com/kevinremde

This has been set up and working for for a couple of years, so this document does'nt really help. It just stopped working a couple of months ago and cycling the firewall on the pc gets it working again so I think it's set up correctly?? Steve

Hi, Please check if your Terminal licenses is still valid ? You might need to purchase CAL for terminal licenses. kindly install terminal licenses manager to check if your terminal services have expired :) contact microsoft for CAL keys :)Guowen Su | CCNA, CCIP, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCTS, MCITP, CEH | http://www.microsoft.com/en/sg/default.aspx Our Goal? VERY SATISFIED Customers. If you're not...let's talk!!

Hi, Thanks for posting in Microsoft TechNet Forum. What is the error message? According to your description, it is also recommended to check the Event Viewer to see what the cause of failed process is. Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, I would appreciate it if you could drop me a note to let me know the status of the issue in the thread. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let me know. I am happy to be of assistance. :) Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, As this thread has been quiet for a while, we assume that the issue has been resolved. At this time, we will mark it as ‘Answered’ as the previous steps should be helpful for many similar scenarios. If the issue still persists, please feel free to reply this post directly so we will be notified to follow it up. You can also choose to unmark the answer as you wish. BTW, we’d love to hear your feedback about the solution. By sharing your experience you can help other community members facing similar problems. Thanks for your understanding and efforts. Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

On My computer I get the error: Log Name: System Source: Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM Date: 5/10/2011 2:42:09 PM Event ID: 10006 Task Category: None Level: Error Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: x.union.edu Description: DCOM got error "2147746132" from the computer thomasg when attempting to activate the server: {833E4010-AFF7-4AC3-AAC2-9F24C1457BCE} Event Xml: <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> <System> <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM" Guid="{1B562E86-B7AA-4131-BADC-B6F3A001407E}" EventSourceName="DCOM" /> <EventID Qualifiers="49152">10006</EventID> <Version>0</Version> <Level>2</Level> <Task>0</Task> <Opcode>0</Opcode> <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2011-05-10T18:42:09.000000000Z" /> <EventRecordID>47986</EventRecordID> <Correlation /> <Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" /> <Channel>System</Channel> <Computer>x.union.edu</Computer> <Security /> </System> <EventData> <Data Name="param1">2147746132</Data> <Data Name="param2">thomasg</Data> <Data Name="param3">{833E4010-AFF7-4AC3-AAC2-9F24C1457BCE}</Data> </EventData> </Event> On The computer I am trying to help I saw this in the event log: DCOM was unable to communicate with the computer LITTST using any of the configured protocols.

Hi, According to your log information, this might be related windows firewall configuration, you could try the following steps to check how it works: 1. Go to Group Policy Editor on computer you trying to help, expand Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Network, Network Connections, Windows Firewall, Domain Profile or Standard Profile. 2. In the Group Policy Management Editor, double click: Windows Firewall: Allow inbound file and printer sharing exception Windows Firewall: Allow inbound remote administration exception Windows Firewall: Allow inbound remote desktop exceptions 3. On the Settings tab, click Enabled Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

These are all enabled and have been for years. And remote assistance has been working for years. I think what happened is we added a new subnet to the allowable ip ranges and this isn't getting updated on the user pcs. If you turn their firewall off then turn it back on everything is fine. I think this resets the users firewall settings somehow. The problem is we get calls all the time and need to do remote assistance and then it doesn't work until someone cycles the firewall. and the people on the help desk can't always do that. Thanks Steve

Hi, Thanks for update. You can try to grant DCOM remote launch and activation permissions for a user or group on your computer: 1. Click Start, click Run, type DCOMCNFG, and then click OK. 2. In the Component Services dialog box, expand Component Services, expand Computers, and then right-click My Computer and click Properties. 3. In the My Computer Properties dialog box, click the COM Security tab. 4. Under Launch and Activation Permissions, click Edit Limits. 5. In the Launch Permission dialog box, follow these steps if your name or your group does not appear in the Groups or user names list: a) In the Launch Permission dialog box, click Add. b) In the Select Users, Computers, or Groups dialog box, add your name and the group in the Enter the object names to select box, and then click OK. 6. In the Launch Permission dialog box, select your user and group in the Group or user names box. In the Allow column under Permissions for User, select Remote Launch and select Remote Activation, and then click OK. Hope it helps. Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Alex, Are you saying to do this on the computer I am trying to remote assist (one of our users)? Or on my computer, the one I am offering the remote assistance from. If you meant the users computer I am trying to remote assist all I have to do is turn the fireqll off then turn it back on and everythinbg works. I just cant figure out why suddenly after all this time of it working ok we need to now cycle the firewall on users computers. Not sure which computer you were referring to though. Let me know Thanks Steve

Hi, Sorry for my unclear words, you could try the steps above on your computer which provides the remote assistance. Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I am an administrator on my machine and administrators already had those checked. I added my user account with those options and tried again and it still failed. Thanks Steve

The symtpom sounds like a random malfunction of Windows Firewall. Re-initialize Windows Firewall can fix the issue for a while. As a workaround, I suggest you force Windows Firewall to be re-initialized each time the machine is rebooted to reduce the frequency of the problem. You can use the following commands in a Startup Script to do this. netsh advfirewall set allprofiles state off netsh advfirewall set allprofiles state on Peterson Wu TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. Regards, Peterson Wu Microsoft Online Community Support

This is an old post, but I am wondering if anyone figured it out. I have the same issue Steve is having. We re running our domain SBS 2008. Group policy for machines have been correctly set. Firewall rules are in place. We can offer remote assistance to machines that have been recently restarted. However, 2-3 hours after restart we try it again and we cannot connect. It fails with XP machines. Windows 7 machines do work. I have tried a bunch of solutions: 1. Reviewed GP 2. Reviewed Firewall settings for domain. 3. Modified Dcom Machine access Restricitions to allow admins Still have the same issue. At this point I'm ready to go and purchase another solution just so that we can provide support to our workstations. Any clues?? Thanks, Diego

Yes we are also still having the problem, I have tried all the suggestions that have been posted, the only thing we can get to work is to remote desktop to the pc turn the firewall off then turn it back on then it will work for a while. I think this shows that our group policy is probably correct. Hope we can solve this it really slows down helping people. There are pc's that do word they are all in the same OU, it doesn't seem to be tied to any one operating system either. Steve