Description of the Functions of Remote Access Auto Connection Manager Service and Autodial

This article describes the functions of the Remote Access Auto Connection Manager service and autodial.

The Remote Access Auto Connection Manager service maps and maintains network addresses to connection destinations. This allows a destination to be automatically dialed from a program or from the command prompt. A network address can be an Internet host name, an Internet Protocol (IP) address, or a NetBIOS server name.

The Remote Access Auto Connection Manager service does not start automatically. You must manually start the service by using the Services node of the Component Services Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in. The service provides the following autodial functions:

• If you are not connected to a network and a program cannot reach a remote address, autodial attempts to create the connection.
  
  
• If you are connected to a network and a program cannot reach a remote address, autodial attempts to create a connection but only for those addresses that it has previously obtained. Autodial does not attempt to create a connection for incorrectly typed server or Internet host names.

NOTE: Autodial determines that a connection is initially required to reach a network resource, but it does not map resources to connections after they are established.