"Unable to Connect to Machine" Error Message When You Try to View Remote Counters

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This article was previously published under Q300702

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SYMPTOMS

When you try to use System Monitor to view performance counters on a remote computer, you may receive the following error message:

Unable to connect to machine.

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CAUSE

This problem may occur if you do not have the appropriate permissions on the remote computer to view performance counters.

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RESOLUTION

To be able to view performance counters on a remote computer, you must have the following permissions on the remote computer that you want to monitor:

If the systemroot is on an NTFS partition, you must have at least Read access to the following two files:
- %SystemRoot%\System32\Perfc009.dat
- %SystemRoot%\System32\Perfh009.dat
You must have at least Read access to the following registry keys on the remote computer:
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurePipeServers\winreg
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib
You must have Full access to the following registry key on the remote computer:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\servicename\performance
where servicename is the name of the service on the remote computer that you want to monitor.

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