Troubleshooting Spotlight on Windows
This section identifies general problems that you may encounter when using Spotlight on Windows, and details how to address those problems. If you do not find a solution in this section then check the Release Notes.
Issues Connecting
Issues Monitoring a Windows Machine
- Display Problems on The Home Page Network Panel, Flows And Network Drilldown
- The Processes Page And Process Affinity
- Enabling the SNMP Protocol
The Registry ... is not accessible.
On connecting to a Windows machine, if Spotlight returns the following error:
The registry on "<<MachineName>>" is not accessible. You need to connect to this machine with an account with privileges to retrieve server information, query the registry, and access performance monitor objects.
Solution
Login to the Windows machine using an account with administrative rights.
A login with administrative rights satisfies the requirements of Spotlight on Windows, with the privileges to retrieve server information, query the registry, and access WMI and performance monitor objects.
Connecting As The Logged-in User
To connect to a Windows machine as a user who is already logged in, do NOT enter any user credentials (Domain, User or Password) in the Connection Properties window.
Notes:
- Spotlight on Windows requires Administrator access on all the Windows machines under diagnosis. If the current user is not an administrator on a machine, that Spotlight connection will fail.
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Windows connections can only have one set of credentials in use at a time. If a user connects to a machine by using NO user name and password, and then disconnects and reconnects with an Administrator password, Windows returns an ERROR_SESSION_CREDENTIAL_CONFLICT error.
For example, if you have mapped a drive to the machine \\serverA\share while logged in as serverA\administrator, you CANNOT map another drive to the same machine while logged in as serverA\user.
You can, however, connect to the same machine with different credentials if you map to the machine via its IP address.
In the example above, if serverA has the IP address 192.168.1.100, you CAN employ the net use command to connect to the machine \\192.168.1.100\share as serverA\user.
WMI Connection Problems
If Spotlight on Windows is displaying a WMI access denied error, and the user specified in the connection profile is an administrator on that machine then it may be necessary to adjust your DCOM or Firewall settings.
Complete the following steps to ensure that your DCOM and Firewall settings are configured to allow WMI connections.
To test WMI is working on the Spotlight client:
- Click Start | Run.
- Enter WBEMTest to run the WMI Tester Utility.
- Click Connect | Connect.
- If an Access is denied error is displayed you do not have rights to make WMI connections. In this case, check (and adjust if necessary) your local DCOM setting (see below).
To check the DCOM access permissions for the monitored machine:
- Login to the monitored machine.
- Click Start | Run.
- Enter DCOMCnfg to run the DCOM configuration utility.
- Select Component Services.
- Click
.
- Click COM Security.
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Under Access Permissions, click Edit Permission.
Ensure Remote Access is set to Allow for the user specified in the connection profile (or the group containing this user).
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Under Launch and Activation Permissions, click Edit Permission.
Ensure Remote Launch and Remote Activation are set to Allow for the user.
For more information, see Securing a Remote WMI Connection on the MSDN site.
To check if Windows Firewall is active on the Spotlight client:
- Open the Control Panel | Windows Firewall.
- If Windows Firewall is on, see Connecting Through Windows Firewall on the MSDN site for information on how to configure the firewall to allow WMI connections.