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Okay, so I disabled the DCOM service. Now, lots of stuff doesn't work, including the Windows Services utility! I'm running Windows XP Professional. How can I re-enable the DCOM service? Can this be done via the registry (i.e. RegEdit)? Also, I'm willing to do a system restore to fix this, but I can't get to it. I usually access the system restore feature through Windows Help, but Help isn't working. :( Is there another way to get to it? Thanks.

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I'm going to try a system restore from the command line. Brb in a few (I hope).... – Jim Fell Dec 24 '09 at 1:09
famous last words? :) – Molly7244 Dec 24 '09 at 1:55
my f5 is getting warm too – Dmatig Dec 24 '09 at 2:12
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3 Answers

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1. Start > Run > dcomcnfg.exe

2. If you are running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, perform these additional steps:

  1. Click the Component Services node under Console Root.

  2. Open the Computers folder.

  3. For the local computer, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

  4. For a remote computer, right-click Computers folder, point to New, and then click Computer.

  5. Type the computer name.

  6. Right-click the computer name, and then click Properties.

3. Click the Default Properties tab.

4. Click to select the Enable Distributed COM on this Computer check box.

5. If you want to set more properties for the computer, click Apply to enable DCOM. Otherwise, click OK to apply the changes and quit Dcomcnfg.exe.

6. Restart the operating system for the changes to take effect.

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Beat me to it :p, for completeness sake: support.microsoft.com/kb/825750 – Dmatig Dec 24 '09 at 0:53
Unfortunately, dialog boxes are no longer working, so clicking on Properties isn't doing anything. Any other ideas? Any thoughts on how to get to System Restore without going through Help? – Jim Fell Dec 24 '09 at 0:55
c:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui – cdenker Dec 24 '09 at 1:00
What happens when you change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\OLE "EnableDCOM" to "Y"? (backup registry first). – Dmatig Dec 24 '09 at 1:01
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Try NET START from a CMD prompt, find the service in the list, then do NET START "service name"; worth a try, but it sounds like the problem is a little deeper than DCOM.

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The DCOM service doesn't appear in the list. You could be right; just prior to this I also installed a bunch of Windows updates via their new "Microsoft Update." Do you have any ideas on how to launch System Restore without going through help? Thanks. – Jim Fell Dec 24 '09 at 0:58
c:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui – cdenker Dec 24 '09 at 1:02
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Okay, it took a while, but I ended up having to do a System Repair using the OEM install CD. Apparently, something was corrupted. The repair seems to have fixed things. Thanks for the help everyone!

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Thanks for the update! Makes sense, post if you have any more questions ;) – Dmatig Dec 24 '09 at 5:16
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