New Activations of Remote COM Server May Not Work If Remote Server Has Been Rebooted

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This article was previously published under Q263607

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SYMPTOMS

When a program that is running on a Windows 2000-based computer attempts to connect to a Component Object Model (COM) server, the call may not succeed and error code 0x800706BA may be generated. Subsequent attempts to connect to the same COM server may succeed.

This behavior typically occurs in the following scenario:

A program that is running on a Windows 2000-based computer connects to a remote COM server and then releases it.
The server is rebooted (and it restarts correctly).
The same program (or even a different program) attempts to connect to the COM server on the remote server, but uses a different string for the server name (either a change in the case of the name, or by using the fully qualified domain name [FQDN]).
The call does not succeed and generates error code 0x800706BA.

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CAUSE

When a Windows 2000-based computer makes a distributed COM (DCOM) connection to a remote server, the server's computer name is added to a global list of computer names and binding handles (gpRemoteMachineList in Rpcss.dll). If a successful DCOM connection has been made to a server, and then the server is rebooted and allowed to start up completely, whether or not another connection attempt is successful depends on whether the specified computer name (from the registry or from the client process by using CoCreateInstanceEx) matches an existing entry in the CRemoteMachineList list. If the specified computer name matches an existing entry, the DCOM connection succeeds. If there is no match, the DCOM connection does not succeed and error code 0x800706BA is generated. Note that the list is case sensitive; you can reproduce this problem by specifying the same server name with different combinations of uppercase and lowercase letters.

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RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

260910 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/260910/EN-US/ ) How to Obtain the Latest Windows 2000 Service Pack

The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:

   Date      Time    Version        Size     File name
   ---------------------------------------------------
   06/29/00  06:47p  5.0.2195.2098  183,056  Rpcss.dll

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000 Service Pack 2.

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MORE INFORMATION

For additional information about how to install Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 hotfixes at the same time, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

249149 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249149/EN-US/ ) Installing Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Hotfixes

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