JSI Tip 9117. The Windows Server 2003 'Windows Firewall' service fails to start if the 'DCOM Server Process Launcher' service is disabled?

After you upgrade a Windows Server 2003 to SP1 (Service Pack 1), you cannot ping it. Even though the Windows Firewall service is set to start Automatically, it did NOT start, and all incoming connections are refused. The Network Connections service and the COM+ Event System service are in a Pending state.

If the DCOMLAUNCH (DCOM Server Process Launcher) service, new to SP1, is disabled, DCOM-related services, like Windows Firewall, Network Connections, and COM+ Event System will NOT start.

NOTE: If you have Group Policy or scripts that are restricting the DCOMLAUNCH service, they must be altered.

To workaround this issue, I have scripted DCOMLAUNCH.bat.

The syntax for using DCOMLAUNCH.bat is:

On the Windows Server 2003:

DCOMLAUNCH

On a Windows XP client:

DCOMLAUNCH NetBiosComputerName

Where NetBiosComputerName is the NetBios computer name of the Windows Server 2003 SP1 computer.

DCOMLAUNCH.bat contains:

@echo offsetlocalset rmt=%1#set rmt=\%rmt:\=%set rmt=%rmt:"=%set rmt=%rmt:#=%if "%rmt%" EQU "\" set rmt=sc %rmt% config DCOMLAUNCH start= AUTOsc %rmt% qc DCOMLAUNCHendlocal