The RPC service is not available (ipconfig)

[Zaelath]

For the windows lads...

We've got some laptops here that are a pretty standard XP install, other than having the Cisco VPN client on them...

However, they're frequently unable to get a DHCP address and error out with something like "Unable to renew the connection on ethernet adapter: The RPC service is not available"

In typical MS fashion, the actual problem is the DHCP Client doesn't start just because you want to use it... even though it's set to automatic.

I've worked around it with a batch file thus:

net start "DHCP Client"
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

and that's all nice, but it's still a PITA (and a min or so later the DHCP Client shuts down and you have to use the batch again if you want to renew/connect to DHCP)

Anyone struck this recently? Thought it might be MS patch uberness....