Get-WmiObject : The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA)

Question

When I run

Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer hostname | select serialnumber

it works for both local and remote hosts.

W

Answer 1

Solved.

I was running into the exact same error message when trying to execute the following script (partial) against a remote VM that was configured to be in the WORKGROUP.

Restart-Computer -ComputerName MyComputer -Authentication Default -Credential $cred -force

I noticed I could run the script from another VM in the same WORKGROUP when I disabled the firewall but still couldn't do it from a machine on the domain. Those two things along with Stackflow suggestions is what brought me to the following solution:

Note: Change these settings at your own risk. You should understand the security implications of these changes before applying them.

On the remote machine:

• Make sure you re-enable your Firewall if you've disabled it during testing.
• Run Enable-PSRemoting from PowerShell with success
• Go into wf.msc (Windows Firewall with Advanced Security)
• Confirm the Private/Public inbound 'Windows Management Instrumentation (DCOM-In)' rule is enabled AND make sure the 'Remote Address' property is 'Any' or something more secure.
• Confirm the Private/Public inbound 'Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI-In)' rule is enabled AND make sure the 'Remote Address' property is 'Any' or something more secure.

Optional: You may also need to perform the following if you want to run commands like 'Enter-PSSession'.

• Confirm the Private/Public inbound 'Windows Management Instrumentation (ASync-In)' rule is enabled AND make sure the 'Remote Address' property is 'Any' or something more secure.
• Open up an Inbound TCP port to 5985

IMPORTANT! - It's taking my remote VM about 2 minutes or so after it reboots to respond to the 'Enter-PSSession' command even though other networking services are starting up without problems. Give it a couple minutes and then try.

Side Note: Before I changed the 'Remote Address' property to 'Any', both of the rules were set to 'Local subnet'.