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Question
Wednesday, January 5, 2011 12:49 AM
I've installed VAMT on a Win 2008 R2 Server, I'm able to add computers, win 7 and xp, from Active Directory. When I do an update status i get "Unable to connect to the WMI service on the remote machine". I've checked everything posted out there but nothing works. Anyone having similar problems?
Firewall off on system
UAC turn all the way down
?????
All replies (23)
Tuesday, February 8, 2011 5:58 PM ✅Answered | 6 votes
Thank you for the additional information, this is what I suspected was happening above.
VAMT treats the domain name of the Active Directory server as authoritative when machines are discovered using "Search for computers in the Active Directory". For most environments this is correct, but for environments where the AD domain does not match the actual DNS, this will not work.
Adding a machine by IP address should work fine, you should also be able to add "machine.region.domainname" as long as you are using "Manually enter name or IP address". You may need to delete the [bad] "machine.domainname" row first.
If adding many machines using the manual method is too tedious due to the size of your environment, you might be able to write a script to do most of the work for you using VAMT's command line interface:
vamt.exe /a /computer:<ip address or hostname> /i <someFile.cil> /o <someFile.cil>
Eric Bluestein [MSFT]. Software Development Engineer - Microsoft Windows, Volume Activation Tools. This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011 3:12 PM | 1 vote
Same problem and in need of some help. Every article found so far doe snot fix the issue. I have Office 2010 clients with legit keys expiring because they can't activate :(
Friday, January 7, 2011 9:32 PM
Error 0x800706BA indicates that either VAMT could not locate the remote machine, could not establish a WMI (DCOM) connection to it, or could not connect to the software licensing service.
The most common cause of this is a firewall issue, but if you've already tested with the firewall completely disabled we can explore other possibilities.
Since you are discovering machines via Active Directory, I'd like to check that VAMT is attempting to connect to the machine at the correct address. When a machine is discovered using AD search in VAMT2, VAMT will form a fully qualified domain name to connect to by concatenating the machine name with the active directory domain name.
In VAMT, go to View -> Add/Remove Columns and add the "Domain/Workgroup" column to your view. Ensure that the FQDN that VAMT will use is correct - for example if I have an entry with "Machine" in the computer name column and "contoso.com" in the Domain/Workgroup column, VAMT will attempt to connect to "Machine.contoso.com".
Pick one of the clients that is returning 0x800706BA and ensure that you can ping the machine that would be at "Computer name" + "Domain/Workgroup".
Assuming you can ping the machine, please try running the following command from an elevated command prompt on the machine that has VAMT installed:
C:\Windows\system32> cscript slmgr.vbs machine.contoso.com /dlv
(replace machine.contoso.com with the FQDN of your Windows 7 client machine)
Is that command able to successfully display the licensing status of the remote client?
Eric Bluestein [MSFT]. Software Development Engineer - Microsoft Windows, Volume Activation Tools. This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 8:41 AM
Hi Eric,
I tried this and was able to get the result however I am still getting the same error.
Thanks
Tuesday, January 18, 2011 6:52 AM
hi
I had the same problem and the cause was that I had several network interfaces on my server attached to various local networks but one of them had an internet connection on it for remote access that got its configuration via DHCP and it messed up ('configured') the route table default gateway and the default DNS so that all my DNS requests that were meant to go to my own DNS attached to the AD ended up going to the internet. No wonder nothing worked :)
- Ransu
Tuesday, January 18, 2011 7:35 AM
Hi Eric,
I tried this and was able to get the result however I am still getting the same error.
Thanks
To confirm that I am understanding correctly: you are able to view the remote client's license status using Slmgr.vbs from a command prompt, but from that same computer, you are unable to refresh status on the same remote client from VAMT?
Can you please confirm that the machine name you are using in the command prompt exactly matches what VAMT is displaying in the "Computer Name" combined with what VAMT is showing in the "Domain/Workgroup" column?
Since the command prompt and VAMT should yield the same results, I would like to check to see if they are both attempting to access the remote machine via the same FQDN. If they differ, there may be a DNS resolution problem or other similar issue.
Eric Bluestein [MSFT]. Software Development Engineer - Microsoft Windows, Volume Activation Tools. This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011 9:04 AM
Hi Eric,
I'm having the same 'Unable to conenct to the WMI service' issue but have further info for you.
When I add a machine to the VAMT using it's name, the VAMT incorrectly resolves it's FQDN to machine.domainaname - where it should be machine.region.domainname e.g. computer1 which has a FQDN of computer1.microsoft.consoto.com is added to the VAMT as computer1.consoto.com therefore not contactable. Even if I add the computer as computer1.microsoft.consoto.com the VAMT changes this to computer1.consoto.com when a query against it is performed.
If I enter the machines IP address I can query and activate successfully - looks to be an issue with the VAMT and name resolution
Cheers
Andy
Tuesday, February 8, 2011 9:24 PM
Hi Eric,
I found that using the 'Manually enter name or IP address' adds the machine with the FQDN but as soon as I select 'Update Status' this is changed to the Domain Name and cannot be queried.
Is this bug going to be fixed sometime soon ?
Thanks
Andy
Monday, February 21, 2011 3:29 PM
Error 0x800706BA indicates that either VAMT could not locate the remote machine, could not establish a WMI (DCOM) connection to it, or could not connect to the software licensing service.
The most common cause of this is a firewall issue, but if you've already tested with the firewall completely disabled we can explore other possibilities.
Since you are discovering machines via Active Directory, I'd like to check that VAMT is attempting to connect to the machine at the correct address. When a machine is discovered using AD search in VAMT2, VAMT will form a fully qualified domain name to connect to by concatenating the machine name with the active directory domain name.
In VAMT, go to View -> Add/Remove Columns and add the "Domain/Workgroup" column to your view. Ensure that the FQDN that VAMT will use is correct - for example if I have an entry with "Machine" in the computer name column and "contoso.com" in the Domain/Workgroup column, VAMT will attempt to connect to "Machine.contoso.com".
Pick one of the clients that is returning 0x800706BA and ensure that you can ping the machine that would be at "Computer name" + "Domain/Workgroup".
Assuming you can ping the machine, please try running the following command from an elevated command prompt on the machine that has VAMT installed:
C:\Windows\system32> cscript slmgr.vbs machine.contoso.com /dlv
(replace machine.contoso.com with the FQDN of your Windows 7 client machine)
Is that command able to successfully display the licensing status of the remote client?
Eric Bluestein [MSFT]. Software Development Engineer - Microsoft Windows, Volume Activation Tools. This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
i hate to steal a thread but i hate to start a new one as well. I have several pcs I cannot activate using VAMT. I have always used IP but have 9 machines that I cannot connect to. All have the firewall and widows defender off. I have activated hundreds of pcs in this same fashon but these will not work no matter what I try.
the above command will also show no results for these 9 machines
I get the following
error 0x800706ba occured in connecting to server ............
I also have 2 machines that are returning the following
a security package specific error occured 0x80070721
Tuesday, March 1, 2011 7:54 AM
I have been reading this post and have the same problem as Andy. We have our DNS in subdomains per region and location organised. If I do a domain search, it finds all the computers, but lists them all with the domain name and cannot update any status for the listed computers. When I add a computer with it's FQDN, it gets added in the VAMT 2.0.67.0 list with the FQDN, but during the update request the FQDN gets changed to the domain name and the update request fails. If I use the slmgr.vbs in a DOS box, with the FQDN, it can resolve the computer name and shows the results. If I add a computer with it's IP address, everything works as expected.
If I use the older VAMT 1.2.300.0 version and search the domain, I get the same results as with the VAMT 2.0.67.0. But when I add a computer without it's FQDN and select "Gather computer information ...", the computer is found and it's status is shown with the proper results. Unfortunatly. all subsequent update request also fail as in the newer version.
The problem with the IP address work around is that we used DHCP and the computers will not necessarily have the same IP everytime and update is started. I also, cannot do an automated search with IP's and this increases the workload to an unacceptable level. Only showing IP's also reduces the value of the information provided by this tool.
A solution to the DNS problem is the only acceptable outcome if this tool is to have any value in the enterprise environment.
Robert
Monday, August 1, 2011 3:44 PM
Hello,
Did you get an answer on this ? I am having the same issue, minus the security package error.
Thanks,
Andy
Andy Tereck
Friday, August 19, 2011 7:12 AM
Hi Ransu,
just found the same problem on my Win Server 2k3 - 2 Network cards, one for local, one for Internet and VAMT cannot update the status of its clients.
After reading your comment, I tried to deactivate the Internet-Network card - and immediately VAMT could update the status of the clients!
Of course I cannot leave the card deactivated, I need Internet...
How did you solve that problem? Any way of getting it working even with 2 NICs in the Server?
Entering IPs would also work, but is not a really convenient since I cannot remember all IPs of our network with the respective computer... :-)
Thanks for any advise!
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 2:29 PM
We have exatly the same problem with VAMT 2.0.67.0 and Windows 2008 R2.
The only way to make a query successfull is to use the machine's IP adress.
I tried to capture network traffic.
If we use the machine name (from search computers in AD or Manually enter name) then there is no netowork traffic at all from the server to the machine.
It looks it is a bug...???
Monday, September 19, 2011 2:57 PM
Hi,
I have the same problem, however I don't think it is Office related in my case but I couldn't find any forum specific for VAMT.
When I try to connect to a Windows 7 client using VAMT it displays the following error message "Unable to connect to the WMI service on the remote machine".
Entering alternative credentials in VAMT (wrong ones) results in an "Access denied" error, as expected!
Using the slmgr command line tool I receive the following error message: "Error 0x800706BA occoured in connecting to server COMPUTER-NAME"
The thing is, I have both, Win7 x64 Pro and ENT computers. Some of them can be managed by VAMT others not. I couldn't find any similarities, it doesn't matter if it is a Pro or ENT computer.
As a workaround I can run "psexec \COMPUTER-NAME %windir%\system32\cscript.exe %windir%\system32\slmgr.vbs -dli"
But that's only good for single computers, I can't manage KMS without VAMT.*
*
Monday, September 19, 2011 5:47 PM
Sebastian,
It is possible that DCOM is not enabled or improperly configured on some of the remote machines. Please have a look at this thread: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/officevolact/thread/b5bd2462-ed78-4a70-b26a-31256820994b, there are some tips on testing the WMI connection and checking the DCOM configuration on the machine.
Eric Bluestein [MSFT]. Software Development Engineer - Microsoft Windows, Volume Activation Tools. This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012 8:38 PM
Im sorry for being a year behind everyone but i'm having the same issue i can only add machines using the ip address,Mr. Bluestein if there was somthing wrong with wmi or dcom why would it work with ip address?
Tuesday, May 29, 2012 9:12 PM
I believe there are actually two distinct issues encountered in the posts above that have been discussed on this thread. Ideally, we should have had two separate threads to avoid confusion.
Firewall or DCOM configuration issues can lead to the 0x800706BA error. This generally means we've found the remote host machine but we were unable to activate the DCOM object that we need to communicate with to perform the remote WMI query.
The IP address vs machine name issue in VAMT 2.0 typically arises from the domain name of the Computer object in Active Directory not actually matching the DNS domain. When searching for machines in AD by name, VAMT appends the AD domain name to the computer name to determine the FQDN it will try to reach out to when refreshing license status. In these cases, it ends up with an FQDN that doesn't resolve. IP address will always work because VAMT does not process it in any way, it simply connects to the IP you've specified.
It is worth noting that this behavior has changed for VAMT 3.0, which now uses your local DNS server to correctly resolve the machine FQDN even if the AD Computer object has a domain name that is different.
You can download the prerelease version of VAMT 3.0 via the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows 8 Consumer Preview: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=221062
Instructions for installing and configuring VAMT 3.0 are available here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825184
Eric Bluestein [MSFT]. Software Development Engineer II - Microsoft Windows Team. This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012 6:58 AM
One thing I didn't fully understand when I started using the VAMT is that you don't need to manually activate anything - servers, workstations, Office. Provided you have the correct KMS keys installed on your KMS server and the correct _VMLCS entry in DNS, Microsoft software will automatically activate. You really only need to use the VAMT to add KMS keys to your KMS server, or change the license type installed on a server or workstation.
One thing that can cause issues with automatic activation is if you have multiple _VMLCS entries in DNS - this is the entry used by your server or workstation to contact your KMS server, if you have multiple entries you will often receve errors stating that the license server hasn't issued enough licenses yet (or something similar). A common cause for multiple _VLMCS DNS entries is the use of a KMS server key and not client key to license servers or workstations. Once a server or workstation has been activated with a KMS server key it advertises its self as a KMS server and adds _VLMCS entries to DNS. By default Windows 7 and Windows server 2008 are installed with a default KMS client key and will automatically activate - no need to install any other license key. If you have used a KMS server key or a MAK key and you need to change, it the public KMS client keys can be found here
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793421.aspx
I hope my experioences of KMS licensing are of some help.
Andy
Friday, June 15, 2012 3:41 AM
Yeah i had the exact same thing happen. i was applying the kms key to servers and each one of them had create its own dns entry. I now have everything set up and working just fine machines are activating automatically as they should. My only thing is how can i get a list or count of whats activated. When i scan the domain i cannot connect to anything, i get the WMI error. I Evan get this on machines that i have added with the ip address and have all ready activated by kms. So how can i know whats activated?
Also i must add my enviorment consist of multiple domains. Which completely makes sense about it trying to match whats in AD to whats in DNS.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012 10:20 PM
Take one machine (test server) from 10.x.x.x subnet and install VAMT 3.0 on that machine (test server). Try to push the product key from (test server) to remote machine in the same subnet.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012 10:22 PM
Take one machine (test server) from 10.x.x.x subnet and install VAMT 3.0 on that machine (test server). Try to push the product key from (test server) to remote machine in the same subnet.
Friday, November 13, 2015 5:16 PM | 4 votes
Easy and Guaranteed Solution, Run Following Command from the Windows 7 PC:
netsh firewall set service RemoteAdmin enable
Cheers...! :)
Thursday, July 25, 2019 6:46 PM
I discovered the DNS entries do not match the IP of the machines with the same problem. In my case this is because I recomposed a linked clone pool. Some VMs kept the same IP, some got a different one from the DHCP. Each VM was activated though
I deleted the stale records, rebooted the VMs in question (faster than /registerdns on each) and flushed DNS cache on the KMS server
Update licensing status now works on the problematic VMs