How to Enable Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) / Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) for Remote Access under Windows NT 4.0

System Requirements:

  • Windows NT 4.0
  • Service Pack 4 or Higher

 

The Problem:

This document outlines the steps required to connect to a Windows Millennium machine using WMI using either a Monkier (inherited session credentials) or SWbemLocator.ConnectServer (specific, stated logon credentials).

This is often difficult to achieve, especially in a domain environment or an environment where more modern versions of Windows need access to the remote WMI service.

 

More Info

Windows NT 4.0 does not ship with any of the WMI components. Microsoft released WBEM version 1.5 for NT 4.0 as a separate download.

This guide will show you how to properly install WMI in order to facilitate remote access connections over a Network. Please note that while this will enable WMI requests over a LAN, the settings will not discriminate between a LAN and an Internet connection. Consequently firewall technology should be employed when dealing with systems that expose a direct peer-to-peer Internet connection.

 

The Fix

The steps below will enable you to connect remotely over WMI under some circumstances (but not all). These steps must be applied to install WMI and configure it before you can change the advanced remote connection settings.

The WMI 1.5 installer for Windows NT includes the DCOMCnfg.exe utility that is required for GUI configuration of WMI for remote access. Use the following steps to configure WMI for remote access.

  1. Install WMI 1.5 for Windows 9x
  2. When prompted, reboot the computer

 

Configure DCOM

Once you have installed dcm95cfg.exe you must configure DCOM. To configure DCOM run the DCOMCnfg utility found in c:\windows\system

  1. By default the “Enable Distributed COM on this computer” check box on the Default Properties tab should be ticked. Often if WMI isn’t working, this has inexplicably become unchecked, disabling DCOM completely.DcomCnfg Screen 1
  2. This will enable WMI to run on the local computer, but not from remote network connections. To enable the basic level of remote access check the “Enable remote connection” box on the Default Security tab. If this doesn’t work for you, keep reading!DcomCnfg Screen 2
  3. Restart the computer.

Windows NT implements WMI as a system service, so as long as the service is running and DCOM is started you will be able to remotely load WMI classes.

All being well, you should now have a working Windows NT machine which supports Remote WMI from modern Windows systems. Do keep in mind that these steps do not cover basic troubleshooting. You should already have Windows Script Host 5.6 installed and Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1.

If you would like to enable all of these settings without launching their respective utilities, you can use this registry script to automatically configure workstations with the remote access settings.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Ole]
"EnableDCOM"="Y"
"DefaultLaunchPermission"=hex:01,00,04,80,64,00,00,00,80,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
14,00,00,00,02,00,50,00,03,00,00,00,00,00,18,00,01,00,00,00,01,01,00,00,00,\
00,00,05,12,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,18,00,01,00,00,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,\
00,05,04,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,18,00,01,00,00,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,\
05,20,00,00,00,20,02,00,00,01,05,00,00,00,00,00,05,15,00,00,00,a0,5f,84,1f,\
5e,2e,6b,49,ce,12,03,03,f4,01,00,00,01,05,00,00,00,00,00,05,15,00,00,00,a0,\
5f,84,1f,5e,2e,6b,49,ce,12,03,03,f4,01,00,00

 

See Also

View: How to Enable Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) / Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) for Remote Access under Windows 95, 98/98SE

View: How to Enable Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) / Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) for Remote Access under Windows Millennium Edition