SBS 2011 – Event Viewer Error – RPC server is unavailable – GP Setting Fix

When we go to remote manage a computer in Active Directory Users & Computers on an SBS 2011 network we will see:

Event Viewer

Connecting, please wait . . .

After a short pause we will then see:

Event Viewer

Event Viewer cannot connect to computer ‘Computer.Domain.LOCAL’. The error reported is: The RPC server is unavailable (sic)

When the computer management console does come up the Event Viewer looks like:

Note the hole where an icon should be to the left of Event Viewer.

To fix this we make a change in a GPO that we create and link to the Computers OU called Windows Computers Policy.

The change would be as follows:

1. Computer Configuration –> Policies –> Windows Settings –> Security Settings –> Windows Firewall with Advanced Security –> Inbound Rules
2. Right click and left click on New Rule.
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3. Click the Predefined radio button.
4. Choose the Remote Event Log Management option in the drop down list.
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5. Click Next.
6. Leave the defaults and click Next.
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7. Choose Allow the connection and click Finish.

Please note that it may take anywhere up to 90 minutes for the machines on the network to refresh their Computer Configuration policies.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

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