DCOMCNFG Items are grayed out?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gerry Hickman
  • Start date Start date
G

Gerry Hickman

Hi,

If I start DCOMCNFG.EXE on Vista and then navigate down to "DCOM Config", it
shows a list of all COM servers on the machine. Some of them allow their
properties to be adjusted, but many of them are grayed out. e.g.

Wordpad - can change properties
Windows Update Agent - can NOT change properties

I need to be able to change properties of all of them. A) When
troubleshooting, B) If I don't agree with the default security. Right now
I'm working on a complex problem with Windows Update Agent.

Can anyone help me get these grayed out items to allow me to edit them?

Right now I'm testing with UAC disabled and logged in as member of
Administrators.
 
Gerry said:
If I start DCOMCNFG.EXE on Vista and then navigate down to "DCOM Config", it
shows a list of all COM servers on the machine. Some of them allow their
properties to be adjusted, but many of them are grayed out.
Click to expand...

OK, I worked it out. It's because some AppID keys have got their
security set to "TrustedInstaller", not "Administrator". You can take
ownership of the keys, but I don't know how to set ownership back to
TrustedInstaller later?

I see this whole thing as a GUI bug because DCOMCNFG prevents you from
READING the security descriptors in the GUI. In other words, even if you
can't change them, you should still be able to READ them.
 
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