Understanding DCOM problems

Meridian relies heavily on the DCOM protocol for communications between its client applications and the Meridian application server as described in Understanding Meridian interprocess communication. Unfortunately, due to the abuse of this protocol by hackers in recent years, Microsoft has steadily increased the default security restrictions on DCOM in subsequent Windows versions, making the legitimate use of the protocol more difficult.

Improper configuration of DCOM can result in a variety of Meridian error messages. When trying to connect to a Meridian application server, a client computer may show one of the following error messages:

• Remote calls are not allowed for this process
• RPC Server not available
• Cannot create instance of AMDocumentRepository
• Access denied

The following topics describe common solutions to these error messages.