Remote DTC access and the Windows XP firewall

I recently had to get my test classes to be able to create distributed
component services transactions from my Windows XP development
machine. Doing this required a bit of configuration both on my machine
and on the Windows 2003 server I was transacting.

In the XP firewall:

1. Add TCP port 135 to the Windows Firewall exceptions list.
2. Add Msdtc.exe to the Windows Firewall exceptions list on all computers involved in Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) transactions.
   

Enabled network DTC access on the Windows 2003 server (from
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817064):

1. Click Start, point to Control Panel, and then click Add or Remove Programs.
2. Click Add/Remove Windows Components.
3. Select Application Server, and then click Details.
4. Select Enable network DTC access, and then click OK.
5. Click Next.
6. Click Finish.
7. Stop and then restart the Distributed Transaction Coordinator service.
8. Stop and then restart Microsoft SQL Server and the other resource manager services that participate in the distributed transaction, such as Microsoft Message Queuing.

Further, in the Component Services snap-in on the Windows 2003 server:

1. Right-click the appropriate computer node and select properties.
2. On the MSDTC tab, click Security Configuration button.
3. In addition to the Network DTC Access being checked, check Network Transactions.
4. Restart MSDTC (and SQL Server, if SQL Server is being transacted).