minlogon and dcom

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Larkin
  • Start date Start date
M

Michael Larkin

Hello All,

Has anyone been succesful getting a dcom service to run on
minlogon? We don't seem to be able to set this up
correctly, even with the dcom app running as a service.
The dcom client (running on XP Pro) is succesful in
launching the dcom server (running on our embedded OS), but
fails to access any methods. The error returned is
ACCESS_DENIED. Everything works fine with winlogon, but
not with minlogon.

Thanks,
Michael Larkin
 
Michael,
It's not surprising, though I don't recall offhand whether DCOM was one of
the services that had a hard dependency on Winlogon, like Terminal Services
and I don't have the RelNotes at home with me now. In rare cases like yours,
the issue is going to be either:

- the feature has a dependency on security features in Winlogon
OR
- the feature has a dependency on one of *winlogon's* dependencies.
Winlogon has many more component dependencies than Minlogon.

To eliminate the second item on that list you'll need to make an
experimental runtime and cheat the build process by doing this:
1. Create a config in TD with Winlogon in it.
2. Satisfy all dependencies so the only thing remaining is to *build* the
runtime, but do not build it yet.
3. Disable the Windows Logon standard component (aka winlogon) in the
config.
4. Add Minlogon - DO NOT RUN CHECK DEPENDENCY - otherwise winlogon may come
back in and disable minlogon.
5. Build the runtime. Now you have all of Winlogon's dependencies in the
config and also have Minlogon, which normally isn't the case.
6. Do you have the same problem in that resulting runtime?
a. If the answer is "yes", then you're right, Winlogon must be in the
config and the error you're getting is expected if you use Minlogon.
b. If the answer is "no", that you no longer receive the error, then
this isn't a Winlogon/Minlogon problem, it simply means that there is a
missing dependency in the DCOM feature that is inadvertently being satisfied
by the Winlogon component's dependencies. All we'll need to do then is
determine which of Winlogon's component dependencies DCOM requires.

More than likely you're probably going to find that DCOM requires security -
which makes sense really.

Let us know what you find Michael. BTW, I checked out wyatt.com and I'm
impressed. I come from an Electrical Engineering background before Microsoft
and you've got some really cool products. I'd be interested in hearing about
what is you're working on sometime.

Thanks

--
Andy

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
=====================================================
 
Hi Andy,

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried what you suggested, but was not
successful in getting our DCOM service running by simply replacing the
winlogon component with the minlogon component (keeping all of the
winlogon dependencies). However, I also tried running a DCOM test app
from http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;259011 ,
and could not launch that from my minlogon OS. The message given was
that I did not have the proper privilege.

Maybe a red herring, but could this be the problem in general? I have
noticed that from minlogon it is indicated that I don't have the
necessary privilege to shutdown -s (stop). I can only shutdown -l
(logout), which does eventualy result in a system shutdown. Is there
a way for me to change my privilege in minlogon (which I thought has
only a system account)?

Thanks for checking out our website. I think our products are pretty
cool too, and its fun to both get to do science and actually build
stuff.

Michael
 
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