Repair Remote Admin

Both EventMeister and LogMeister use a Microsoft technology known as WMI to access the logs on your networked computers. The most common error reported by the operating system for WMI problems is Access Denied. As you might have guessed, there are many causes for Access Denied. Here's a quick run down of some of the more common ones. You'll find a longer list, with more suggested solutions, in the Troubleshooting section of the Help.

1. If reading logs from another computer on the network, make sure that the user and password you have supplied for each feed correspond to an administrator account on the target computer. That account MUST have a non-blank password.
2. Check that DCOM is enabled on both the host and the target PC. Check the following registry value on both computers: (Key: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\OLE, value: EnableDCOM, should be set to 'Y')
3. Check that WMI is installed. WMI is present by default in all flavors of Windows 2000 and later operating systems, but must be installed manually on NT4 systems. (To check for the presence of WMI, type "wbemtest" into the Run box (Start Menu). If the WMI Tester application starts up, then WMI is present, if not, it must be installed. Consult the Troubleshooting section of the Help for details.)
4. Ensure that WMI permissions have been set correctly. Please consult the Troubleshooting section of the Help for details.
5. On a Windows XP Pro computer, make sure that remote logons are not being coerced to the GUEST account (aka "ForceGuest", which is enabled by default computers that are not attached to a domain). To do this, open the Local Security Policy editor (e.g. by typing 'secpol.msc' into the Run box, without quotes). Expand the "Local Policies" node and select "Security Options". Now scroll down to the setting titled "Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts". If this is set to "Guest only", change it to "Classic" and restart your computer.
6. Also on an XP computer running SP2, configure the firewall to allow remote administration. To do this, open a command prompt and type: netsh firewall set service RemoteAdmin
7. If you have other internal firewalls on your network, you may have to configure them to allow WMI messages. Again, you'll find advice on how to do this in the troubleshooting section of the Help. Even if you are not knowingly running any firewall software, bear in mind that big-name antivirus solutions such as those produced by McAfee and Symantec often contain their own firewall functionality. If such software is not properly configured to allow WMI traffic, then this may be the cause of the problem.
8. Make sure that no remote access or WMI-related services have been disabled. On an XP machine, the following services should be running (or at least allowed to start on demand):

• COM+ Event System
  
• Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
• Remote Access Connection Manager
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator
• Remote Registry
• Server
• Windows Management Instrumentation
• Windows Management Instrumentation Driver Extensions
• WMI Performance Adapter
• Workstation