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

It might be due to various issues.I cant say which one is there in your case.

Below given reasons may be there:

• DCOM is not enabled in host PC or target PC or on both.
• Your Firewall or even your antivirus is preventing the access.
• Any WMI related service is disabled.

Some WMI related services are as given:

• Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
• Remote Access Connection Manager
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Locator
• Remote Registry

For DCOM setting refer:

• Key: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\OLE, Value: EnableDCOM

The value should be set to 'Y' .

Your code probably isn't using a correct machine name, you should double check that.

Your error is:

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

This is the result you get when a machine is not reachable. So the firewall suggestions are reasonable, but in this case probably not correct because you say this works:

Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer hostname

So in your case it seems when this line is executed:

Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer $_

$_ doesn't contain a proper computer name. You could check type and contents of $_. Probably there is a problem with the file contents. If the file looks right, then maybe the lines are not properly terminated. Maybe take a closer look using Write-Host:

ForEach ($_ in gc u:\pub\list.txt) {
    Write-Host "Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer '$_'"
    Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer $_ | select serialnumber | format-table -auto @{Label="Hostname"; Expression={$_}}, @{Label="Service Tag"; Expression={$_.serialnumber}}
}

I was having the same problem but only with a few machines. I found that using Invoke-Command to run the same command on the remote server worked.

So instead of:

Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -ComputerName $hostname -Authentication Negotiate

Use this:

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $hostname -Authentication Negotiate -ScriptBlock {Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure}

If you've tried some of the suggestions in the other answers, most notably:

• David Brabant's answer: confirming the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) inbound firewall rule is enabled
• Abhi_Mishra's answer: confirming DCOM is enabled in the Registry

Then consider other common reasons for getting this error:

• The remote machine is OFF
• You specified an invalid computer name
• There are network connectivity problems between you and the target computer

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'.

I found this blog post which suggested adding a firewall exception for "Remote Administration", and that worked for us on our Windows Server 2008 Enterprise systems.

http://mikefrobbins.com/2012/03/08/get-wmiobject-the-rpc-server-is-unavailable-exception-from-hresult-0x800706ba/

Enabling following FW rules on target system resolved the problem on Win2k16:

• Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI-In)
• Distribiuted Transaction Coordinator (RPC)
• Distribiuted Transaction Coordinator (RPC-EPMAP)

I was having the same issue using foreach. I saved the list to $servers and used this which worked:

ForEach ($_ in $Servers) { Write-Host "Host $($_)" | Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer $_ | format-table -auto @{Label="Service Tag"; Expression={$_.serialnumber}}
}

Thought I would add that we also ran into this issue with multiple machines in our domain. I created a list of offending machines and added them all to a text file from which to run the script. I ran this from the CMD prompt using elevated privileges.

 psexec @firewallFix.txt -d netsh advfirewall firewall 
        set rule name="Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI-In)" 
        profile=domain new enable=yes profile=domain

I faced the similar issue on new server that I built through automated scripts via vcenter api. Looks like the "Remote Procedure Call (RPC)" service may not be running on the remote machine. you need to wait for the service to come up to use the Get-WmiObject command. Hence I simply put the script into sleep for sometime and it worked.

I had same issue, and for me, I was trying to use an IP Address instead of computer name. Just adding this as one more potential solution for people finding this down the road.

Below is the native PowerShell command for the most up-voted solution. Instead of: netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)" new enable=yes

Use could use the slightly simpler syntax of:

Enable-NetFirewallRule -DisplayGroup "Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI-In)"

Very odd but I used the IP address (vs the hostname) and it worked for me.

Get-WmiObject -Computername MyHostName ...  
 [Fails: Get-WmiObject : The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA)]

Get-WmiObject -Computername 50.50.50.50
 [Successful]

I encountered the same "Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA" error with get-wmiobject -computerName remoteserverName -class win32_logicaldisk. The remote server is an AWS EC2 instance in my case. The Windows server firewall has WMI ports open. SecurityGroup attached to the EC2 instance has common RPC ports (tcp/udp 135-139, 49152 - 65535) inbound allowed.

I then ran netstat -a -b |findstr remoteServerName after kick off the get-wmiobject powershell command. Turns out the command was trying hit tcp port 6402 on the remote server! After added tcp 6402 into its Security Group inbound rule, get-wmiobject works perfectly! It appears the remote server has WMI set to a fixed port!

So if you checked all usual firewall rules and stil having problem with WMI, try use netstat to identify which port the command is actually trying to hit.