Windows 2003 Service Pack 2 forces Mutual Authentication with MSDTC

Source: Microsoft Support

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Applications that use MSDTC may stop working after applying Windows 2003 Service Pack 2.

Windows 2003 Service Pack 2 installation resets the DTC security setting to the default �Mutual Authentication Required�. This may affect applications that do not use Mutual Authentication.

You can manually change the MSDTC security setting to "No Authentication Required".

1. Click Start, click Run, type Dcomcnfg.exe, and then click OK.
2. Expand Component Services, expand Computers, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
3. In the My Computer Properties dialog box, click the MSDTC tab, and then click Security Configuration.
4. In the Security Configuration dialog box, ensure the Network DTC Access check box is selected. Then, click to select No Authentication Required under Transaction Manager Communication.
5. Click OK, and then click Yes to restart the MSDTC service.
6. After the service has restarted, click OK.
7. Click OK to close the My Computer Properties dialog box.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756 How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

You can also create a .reg file to set MSDTC security to �No Authentication Required� by setting TurnOffRpcSecurity DWORD to 1

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSDTC
AllowOnlySecureRpcCalls = 0
FallbackToUnsecureRPCIfNecessary = 0
TurnOffRpcSecurity = 1

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