When I try to access Disk Manager on my Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 2 (SP2) machine, I get the following error: Access to Disk Manager on machine_name is denied. You don't have rights to access the service. I am a Local Administrator on my machine. The Logical Disk Manager and Logical Disk Administrator services are set to log on as the LocalSystem account and to allow the service to interact with the desktop. I am at the end of my rope. Can you help?
As the Microsoft article "Access to Disk Manager is Denied" (http://support.microsoft.com/default/aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q264910) explains, this problem usually occurs when the default authentication level or the default access permissions setting in the Distributed COM Configuration (dcom-cnfg.exe) utility has been changed from Connect to Default. To resolve the problem, run dcomcnfg.exe; this action opens the Distributed COM Configuration Properties dialog box. Go to the Default Properties tab and change the Default Authentication Level to Connect. Go to the Default Security tab and click Edit Default, under Default Access Permissions. Click Add, select the Administrator account or Administrators local group, and set the access type to Allow Access. Click OK repeatedly to exit the utility, then shut down and restart the system.
An advantage of running the Distributed COM Configuration utility is that it can automatically recognize and repair some application-configuration problems—typically when the problematic application is running at the moment you execute dcomcnfg.exe. The utility informs you of such problems through warning messages that offer the option to let the utility repair the problem.