remote system information, Win2000 from WinXP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dennis Calhoun
  • Start date Start date
D

Dennis Calhoun

Hi Folks,

I've found it impossible, despite my best efforts, to "view system
information" of a networked Win2000 system from an XP Home system. I
*can* access any shared directory on the Win200 box from the WinXP box
though.

I've checked and found that Windows Management Instrumentation is
installed and started, my login is administrator, my firewall/s have
been set to allow (and even disabled), my... geesh, EVERYthing seems
as it should be, but I still can not connect to the Win2000 machine
via the XP System Information | View | Remote Computer... menu option.

I get the same error, no matter what I try. That being....
The connection to <whatever name> could not be established.

Any help will surely be appreciated, since I've spent countless hours
searching the MS knowledge base with no success.
 
Dennis Calhoun said:
Hi Folks,

I've found it impossible, despite my best efforts, to "view system
information" of a networked Win2000 system from an XP Home system. I
*can* access any shared directory on the Win200 box from the WinXP box
though.

I've checked and found that Windows Management Instrumentation is
installed and started, my login is administrator, my firewall/s have
been set to allow (and even disabled), my... geesh, EVERYthing seems
as it should be, but I still can not connect to the Win2000 machine
via the XP System Information | View | Remote Computer... menu option.

I get the same error, no matter what I try. That being....
The connection to <whatever name> could not be established.

Any help will surely be appreciated, since I've spent countless hours
searching the MS knowledge base with no success.
Click to expand...
 
Dennis,
Did you ever get an answer to your query? I am trying to network a Win2000
PC with two XP's and cannot run the wizard in 2000. It tells me to refer to
the Help in XP and that is unhelpful. Can anyone tell me where to get
instructions on how to setup such a network?
 
You need to logon to your XP Home computer with a logon and password that is an
administrator on the "W2K" computer. When you access shares on the W2K computer
you can go to Computer Management/shared folders/sessions to see the user
account that you are authenticating as on the W2K computer and when you run [
net user username ] for that username it must show that it is a member of the
administrators group on the W2K computer. -- Steve
 
You need to logon to your XP Home computer with a logon and password that is an
administrator on the "W2K" computer. When you access shares on the W2K computer
you can go to Computer Management/shared folders/sessions to see the user
account that you are authenticating as on the W2K computer and when you run [
net user username ] for that username it must show that it is a member of the
administrators group on the W2K computer. -- Steve
Click to expand...


Thanks Steve, but I did that before posting about it. This is an
example of what I meant when I said that "everything seems as it
should, but I still can not connect..."

Any other suggestions?

Dennis
 
OK. I tried once to do the same while logged onto an XP Home computer as
administrator and when I tried to access a W2K computer on my network I got
the same message as you did about connection could not be established. As
soon as I made sure that the logon account on my XP Home computer was also
an administrator an the W2K computer I was able to get access no problem to
remote computer System Information. If you are 100 percent sure that you are
an administrator on the target machine, I would probably try to use Ethereal
to capture and analyze the packet exchange while trying to gain access to
see if it has information on why access is being denied. You obviously seem
to have smb network access if you can access network shares on the target
computer, particulary if you can access administrative shares such as C$.


Dennis Calhoun said:
You need to logon to your XP Home computer with a logon and password that is an
administrator on the "W2K" computer. When you access shares on the W2K computer
you can go to Computer Management/shared folders/sessions to see the user
account that you are authenticating as on the W2K computer and when you run [
net user username ] for that username it must show that it is a member of the
administrators group on the W2K computer. -- Steve
Click to expand...


Thanks Steve, but I did that before posting about it. This is an
example of what I meant when I said that "everything seems as it
should, but I still can not connect..."

Any other suggestions?

Dennis
Click to expand...
 
OK. I tried once to do the same while logged onto an XP Home computer as
administrator and when I tried to access a W2K computer on my network I got
the same message as you did about connection could not be established. As
soon as I made sure that the logon account on my XP Home computer was also
an administrator an the W2K computer I was able to get access no problem to
remote computer System Information. If you are 100 percent sure that you are
an administrator on the target machine, I would probably try to use Ethereal
to capture and analyze the packet exchange while trying to gain access to
see if it has information on why access is being denied. You obviously seem
to have smb network access if you can access network shares on the target
computer, particulary if you can access administrative shares such as C$.
Click to expand...

Thanks Steve,
I've tried this same thing on some computers at the school and got the
same resulting failure message.

When I access
Administrative Tools | Computer management Services and Applications |
WMI Control | Properties | Security | Root
I see that Administrators are allowed full access to everything. But
ALL components below Root show ALL access "checked to allow" and all
are GRAYED OUT, unavailable.
This makes me suspect that some other Security protocol setting is
over-riding WMI settings/permissions, but I can't for the life of me
figure out what it is.
 
Hmm. I am pretty much at a loss what your problem is also. The grayed out permissions
just mean that they are inherited permissions and as long as administrators show full
control, even if grayed out, you should be fine. Permissions changed at the root
should show the same in inherited permissions. The other thing to try is to enter the
IP address of the computer you want to manage instead of it's name to see if it helps
in case there is a name resolution problem --- Steve
 
Hmm. I am pretty much at a loss what your problem is also. The grayed out permissions
just mean that they are inherited permissions and as long as administrators show full
control, even if grayed out, you should be fine. Permissions changed at the root
should show the same in inherited permissions. The other thing to try is to enter the
IP address of the computer you want to manage instead of it's name to see if it helps
in case there is a name resolution problem --- Steve
Click to expand...

I've now tried that option too, but still cannot get in. OH well,
beats me.

Thanks for the help anyway. :)

Dennis
 
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