How do I re-enable the DCOM service, after I disabled it?

Question

Okay, so I disabled the DCOM service. Now, lots of stuff doesn't work, including the Windows Services utility! I'm running Windows XP Professional. How can I re-enable the DCOM service? Can this be done via the registry (i.e. RegEdit)? Also, I'm willing to do a system restore to fix this, but I can't get to it. I usually access the system restore feature through Windows Help, but Help isn't working. :( Is there another way to get to it? Thanks.

Answer 1

Okay, it took a while, but I ended up having to do a System Repair using the OEM install CD. Apparently, something was corrupted. The repair seems to have fixed things. Thanks for the help everyone!

Answer 2

1. Start > Run > dcomcnfg.exe

2. If you are running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, perform these additional steps:

1. Click the Component Services node under Console Root.

2. Open the Computers folder.

3. For the local computer, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

4. For a remote computer, right-click Computers folder, point to New, and then click Computer.

5. Type the computer name.

6. Right-click the computer name, and then click Properties.

3. Click the Default Properties tab.

4. Click to select the Enable Distributed COM on this Computer check box.

5. If you want to set more properties for the computer, click Apply to enable DCOM. Otherwise, click OK to apply the changes and quit Dcomcnfg.exe.

6. Restart the operating system for the changes to take effect.

Answer 3

Try NET START from a CMD prompt, find the service in the list, then do NET START "service name"; worth a try, but it sounds like the problem is a little deeper than DCOM.