Command-line utility for setting launch, activate and access permissions for COM servers, as well as the idenity it should run as. Normally these tasks must be done manually using Windows' built-in "DCOM Config" utility, part of the "Component Services" management console, accessible from the "Administrative Tools" Control Panel, dcomcnfg.exe, or mmc.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\comexp.msc. You can dive into WMI, PowerShell etc for changing the configuration from command line, but often a good old command line application is the easiest and best solution.

DComPermEx is an extended version of Microsoft's DCOM permission command line utility DComPerm, published only as source code - a sample that demonstrate the API used in Windows classic desktop applications. Originally published in Windows 7 SDK, but also available on Microsoft's GitHub account: https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-classic-samples/tree/master/Samples/Win7Samples/com/fundamentals/dcom/dcomperm.

Microsoft has never published the utility in any other form than source code, but I do build and release it from my separate branch containing the original untouched source code (but with my own build configuration). If you for some reason don't want my latest version with additional features you can use my builds of the original version.

The application is a stand-alone single-binary, and I build it with the Visual C++ runtime libraries statically linked in - which makes it easy to copy around where you need it, and also easy to use in an installer custom action.

The releases containing only the original source code from Microsoft will contain DComPerm.exe versioned 1.0 etc.

• Migrated build configuration to Visual Studio 2015 Update 3.
• Statically linking the Visual C++ run-time library to avoid any dependencies.
• Setting version and other resource info.
• Started with a copy of the original source code from Microsoft's Windows-classic-samples.

My extended version is released as DComPermEx.exe and versioned 2.0 etc.

All list operations support an additional argument "xml" which will return the permission list XML formatted, for easier processing in PowerShell scripts etc.

The original version supports setting application level permissions to machine default, or customizing it by adding or removing permissions for a specified principal. When you customize the permissions for an application for the first time it will be initialized to some proper defaults before the customization is applied (from code comment: "Sets the default ACEs in a ACL for the enhanced COM security model."). Note that these defaults are not necessarily the same as the machine defaults, which is what will be set when you do the same from the "DCOM Config" part of the "Component Services" user interface.

If you for instance want to set permissions only for a single principal you have to remove all others from the default set. To simplify this I introduced a new option to set permissions to "none", which clears the ACL - effectively setting deny for everyone. Due to risk of getting yourself into problems, this option is only possible on specific AppID, and even then; please use with care!

• Automatically remove stored runas password when setting Interactive or Launching user.
• Add support for retrieving runas information.
• Minor improvement in usage help text.

• Fix issue where wrong user account information could be shown, as a result of LookupAccountSid call failing.
• Migrated build configuration to Visual Studio 2022 / Visual C++ 14.30.
• Changed build configuration from Multi-Byte Character Set to Unicode Character Set.
• Added 64-bit build configuration.
• Output text according to system locale.

• Migrated build configuration to Visual Studio 2017, and set more explicit minimum system requirements in build configuration (but minimum is the same Windows Vista / Server 2008 as in previous version).

• Added option to set application permissions to none, which clears the ACL effectively setting deny for everyone. Due to risk of getting yourself into problems, this option is only possible on specific AppID, and even then use with care!
• Added list option to return permission lists in XML format.
• Migrated build configuration to Visual Studio 2015 Update 3.
• Statically linking the Visual C++ run-time library to avoid any dependencies.
• Setting version and other resource info.
• Started with a copy of the original source code from Microsoft's Windows-classic-samples.

The current build configuration mean Windows Vista and Server 2008 (or newer) are supported.

Note that many of the operations needs the application to be run as admininstrator (elevated) to work properly!

The main purpose of this utility is to be able to script setting of DCOM permissions. But I also found it very useful when I unintentionally removed the special group "SELF" from the machine level access permissions in DCOM Config. I could not find any way to add that special group back into the permission list using the DCOM Config user interface. DComPerm(Ex) to the rescue:

DComPermEx.exe -da set "NT AUTHORITY\SELF" permit level:l,r

The complete syntax description as reported by the command line utility itself:

Syntax: DComPermEx.exe <option> [...]

Options:
   -ma <"set" or "remove"> <Principal Name> ["permit" or "deny"] ["level:l,r"]
   -ma list [xml]
       Modify or list the machine access permission list

   -ml <"set" or "remove"> <Principal Name> ["permit" or "deny"] ["level:l,r,ll,la,rl,ra"]
   -ml list [xml]
       Modify or list the machine launch permission list

   -da <"set" or "remove"> <Principal Name> ["permit" or "deny"] ["level:l,r"]
   -da list [xml]
       Modify or list the default access permission list

   -dl <"set" or "remove"> <Principal Name> ["permit" or "deny"] ["level:l,r,ll,la,rl,ra"]
   -dl list [xml]
       Modify or list the default launch permission list

   -aa <AppID> <"set" or "remove"> <Principal Name> ["permit" or "deny"] ["level:l,r"]
   -aa <AppID> default
   -aa <AppID> none
   -aa <AppID> list [xml]
       Modify or list the access permission list for a specific AppID

   -al <AppID> <"set" or "remove"> <Principal Name> ["permit" or "deny"] ["level:l,r,ll,la,rl,ra"]
   -al <AppID> default
   -al <AppID> none
   -al <AppID> list [xml]
       Modify or list the launch permission list for a specific AppID

   -runas <AppID> <Principal Name> <Password>
   -runas <AppID> "Interactive User"
   -runas <AppID> "Launching User"
       Set the RunAs information for a specific AppID

   -help
   -version
       Show this help and the application version

level:
   ll - local launch (only applies to {ml, dl, al} options)  
   rl - remote launch (only applies to {ml, dl, al} options)  
   la - local activate (only applies to {ml, dl, al} options)  
   ra - remote activate (only applies to {ml, dl, al} options)  
   l  - local (local access - means launch and activate when used with {ml, dl, al} options)  
   r  - remote (remote access - means launch and activate when used with {ml, dl, al} options)  

Examples:
   dcomperm -da set redmond\t-miken permit level:r
   dcomperm -dl set redmond\jdoe deny level:rl,ra
   dcomperm -aa {12345678-1234-1234-1234-00aa00bbf7c7} list
   dcomperm -al {12345678-1234-1234-1234-00aa00bbf7c7} remove redmond\t-miken
   dcomperm -runas {12345678-1234-1234-1234-00aa00bbf7c7} redmond\jdoe password

See the original readme.htm for basic introduction to the source code.

All code is licensed under MIT License.