In trying to figure out why my scheduled backups failed to run, I noted that dcomcnfg.exe was hanging. If I try to run it from Administrative tools or the RUN box it always hangs with the window open but not fully populated1 person needs an answerI do too

How long do you let it run, before determining that it hangs? Consider using Sysinternals' Process Monitor to try to determine what the process is doing. Is it continuously querying a registry key? May be an indication of registry corruption or inconsistency. Is anything logged to the Event Logs when you notice this behavior?