OpenSCManager FAILED 5

[DevelopAri]

Hi,
I am trying to run "sc \\remote_computer query" in the command prompt,
but always get "[SC] OpenSCManager FAILED 5".

The remote_computer is stand-alone (i.e. does not belong to a domain)
and I am accessing it from a user account not defined on it. Both
computers are running Windows XP PRO with SP2.

I have tried to fiddle with the security settings on remote_computer
but without success. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Many thanks,
Ari

[Roger Abell [MVP]]

I am puzzled as to why you think it would work, instead of
giving the access denied that you see, and even more puzzled
at why you would want to lower that safeguard to that any
unauthenticated access could connect to the SCM.
Have you tried first forming a connection to the target machine,
such as by mapping a drive with recognized credentials? I am
not sure that would establish credentials for sc but who knows
before trying. Finally, if you do really want to lower the SCM
protections, then you need to modify the ACL for SCManager
(not really sure the most direct way to do that on XP).

"DevelopAri" <devel...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1175071585.0...@y66g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

[DevelopAri]

Hi Roger and thanks for your input.

I finally stumbled upon the following quote on msdn (http://
msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms685981.aspx):

"Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP/2000/NT: Unlike most other
securable objects, the security descriptor for the SCM cannot be
modified. This behavior has changed as of Windows Server 2003 SP1."

I actually ended up creating a small RPC server that is able to give
back the status of the Windows services I am interested in, as well as
start them up on request.