[RDC Issues]

[SomaticCorpse]

O.k., there's a box in the living room, that pulls an i.p., which I can see from the router.

I want to remote desktop to it, using the laptop (hereafter, lappy) because the box doesn't have a monitor.

RDC is not enabled on the box, and I can't (successfully) use the regedit tool or the Management Console to administrate the box. Typically, one of two things happens:
Access Denied - Make sure services are running/enabled.
Couldn't find * [Name of Box] in Network Path

What's retarded, is the server 2003 is in the same workgroup as the target box. (Yes, I forget to mention I have a virtual machine on the lappy, too.)

So, I know the box is up and alive. I can ping it. I can also add the root (C$) of the target to my mapped drives, but I get denied access to the windows folder.

I've tried everything, and was wondering if someone had any ideas/clues/help? Of course, other than getting a monitor for the box; noone ever uses it, and I want to use it as a file server/testing environment.

To repeat some steps, so you understand what's going on:
Run>Regedit>File>Connect Network Registry - FAIL
Run>compmgmt.msc>Action>Connect to another computer... - FAIL
Explorer>Tools>Map Network Drive - Success, but directory denial/security.

...and since I don't have a monitor to connect to the target box, I can't just simply check the box that allows RDC :(

I'm at a loss :( ...and I can't force GPO's to the target, because I can't add the target to a domain, without access to the box, itself. [If that made any sense, at all...]

Yes, in effect, I may have to hack the box, but I have no idea how to go about doing that or fixing this problem.

[Arainach]

Why not take a monitor off one of your machines, go hook it up for a few minutes, set up the machine, then move the monitor back where it came from.

To be honest, if you COULD setup a machine like that without RDC being enabled on it, I'd be terrified since it was such a gaping security flaw.

[SomaticCorpse]

There is no monitor, that's my issue :-p

The lappy has one, but - of course - that's built in.

[Arainach]

What you are proposing is impossible by design. You pretty much have to find a monitor.

[deathofcheese]

Why not VNC into it? Or did I miss something? I know RDC is kinda the same thing as VNC, but I use VNC amongst my computers at home no problem.

There's a nice package of one that I use at work called VNCon (http://vncon.chronetal.co.uk/) that will let you IP scan, domain scan and find a computer by name or IP, plus, you can see if VNCon is installed/running even on computers that don't have any VNC. As long as the firewall isn't up, you can connect to a computer and do a remote install which installs the VNC server on the target box.