Silicon Thumb

Since the 1980s, I've worked with computers, watched them grow, shrink, change and improve. I've worked with a lot of users and solved a lot of problems in that time too, so I thought this would be a good place to share some of the random things I've found and solved. If you have some odd problem, email me. If I can figure it out I'll post the answer here.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Mansfield, Texas, United States

I am a veteran computer geek, but I prefer the term 'Hired Gun', since that gives the (misleading) impression that I know what I'm talking about. I have worked on all sizes of system as an engineer, developer, technical support and operations, and at all levels from Operator to CIO.
I have some certifications, but what they are depends on what Microsoft is calling them this week.

If you have a question, and don't mind the answer being posted, email me here, removing the spam stopper.

Friday, December 09, 2011

RPC Server is Unavailable or Acquiring Network Address

This is one of those annoying ones for which there are 20 solutions, one of which may work, and all of which require an internet connection, which you do not have.

What follows is a way around the problem, and is not intended to be permanent, although if its for a desktop or a laptop that never leaves the house then use it by all means.

If you get the Acquiring Network Address message and it never goes away, you may be inclined to dig around and discover that the RPC Server is unavailable. What an RPC Server is or why its missing is beyond the scope of this little blog, suffice it to say that if you want to solve the problem you will need to google around and download a fix, which you can't do, because you can't connect to the internet!! (I'm assuming you're accessing this on your phone)

The workaround is really quite simple. Go to Control Panel-> Network Connections->TCP/IP Protocol (V4) and select Properties, then select specify an IP address.

Give your machine an IP address , subnet mask and default gateway. The info on the default gateway and subnet mask should be written on your router or the book that your cable guy left you, or if you do have another computer you can do Start->Run->cmd then type ipconfig and find it there.

The ip address should be in the same domain, so if your default gateway is 192.168.1.1 and your subject mask is 255.255.255.0, then picking, for example 192.168.1.42 should be a pretty safe bet, unless you're on a corporate network, in which case it may take some trial and error to find a free address.

Once you have made the changes and hit okay, restart your machine and you should be good to go. Now you can download any patches, drivers etc to resolve the problem, or leave the machine asis if you are not planning to take it out of the house. Remember to change the config though if you change service providers.

That's all for now, over and out.





0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home