The Remote Access Connection Manager service in Windows systems is practically unknown to many ordinary users, and very often they simply do not know what it is and what this system component is responsible for. Meanwhile, sometimes you can find the appearance of some specific errors in which there is a direct or indirect reference to this particular service. Let's try to fill the gap in knowledge, and also consider some typical situations related to the functioning of this component.
What is "Remote Access Connection Manager"?
Actually, you should start with the fact that most untrained users mistakenly perceive this service as a tool for remote access to another computer.
Indeed, the partially described component is responsible forsuch connections, but the environment of its use is much wider. But to put it in plain language, the “Remote Access Connection Manager” is used by the operating system for many operations, among which the activation of VPN connections and Internet sharing takes a special place, not to mention the ability to manage other computers located on the Network, update Windows, using telephony, etc. It is also noteworthy that even such a seemingly independent component as Windows Audio also refers to this particular service. As is probably already clear, if problems arise with the main component, child processes will also not be able to start. And here error notifications will begin to appear, in which it will not be said directly that the disruption is related specifically to the “Remote Access Connection Manager”, however, the error code may indicate just this. We will dwell on possible failures in more detail a little later, but for now let's find out how expedient it is to activate or disable this component.
Do I need to start the service manually?
As a rule, if you look at the state of the service itself, using the corresponding section on Windows systems, called through the “Run” console with the services.msc command, you can easily make sure that its start is set to automatic start by default.
The brief description says that "Remote Access Connection Manager" affects VPN connections, as well as some others, obviouslycomponents that depend on it (which ones are not specified). However, since this component starts exclusively automatically, you do not need to perform any operations with it yourself. The only exceptions are those situations when for some reason it was deactivated. But how to start the "Remote Access Connection Manager" manually if some kind of failure occurs? It's simple!
Double-click to open the parameter editing window, then press the start button and only then select the automatic start type from the drop-down list. After saving the changes, rebooting the system, in principle, is not necessary. This action may be required only if you are trying to resolve errors related to this particular component.
Can I disable "Remote Access Connection Manager"?
Sometimes users have completely legitimate questions about disabling this service, since on the same Internet you can find a lot of recommendations to improve system performance just by deactivating unused components. How expedient is this? By and large, disabling this service is not worth it (in RAM, the process itself takes about 3-4 MB and does not have a special effect on excessive consumption of system resources).
On the other hand, unless you're really using the same VPN connection, remote desktop access won't work. If you plan to install updates for the operating system, do not use printing on a network printer, you can deactivate the service itself and the RasMan process associated with it. Roughly speaking, it is advisable to disable it only if your computer is almost completely isolated from the outside world. However, as stated even on the official website of Microsoft Corporation, sometimes it is necessary to disable it without fail, which is associated with the penetration of certain types of threats into the system. But in this case, it is recommended only to block UDP ports 445, 138, 137 and 135, as well as TCP ports 593, 445, 139 and 135. All manually activated ports used by the RPC service (remote procedure call) are also subject to blocking. The service itself can be left in manual start mode.
Side effects of service deactivation
As for the consequences of disabling the described service, after that there will be no use of VPN and there will be no talk, it will be impossible to use telephony, not to mention the fact that some problems may arise when plug & play devices are installed in the system.
In addition, as mentioned above, there may be problems with Windows Audio (most often there is an error starting child services with the number 1068), the occurrence of failure 711 is not excluded.
Troubleshooting service startup
However, you can encounter problems with the service itself. In particular, this is due to the fact that the "Connection Managerremote access" does not start under any pretext. In this case, oddly enough, it is recommended to check the status of child services, as well as pay attention to additional processes such as remote procedure calls, basic filtering in the firewall, for which the startup type should be set to automatic. Sometimes you can try to simply restore the system to the point where problems were not observed. In the worst situation, you can try resetting Windows (8 or 10) or even reinstalling it again.
Summary of conclusions
The above was only very brief information. In fact, things are much more complicated with the described component itself. But if you give some recommendations in the end, you can say that you should not engage in experiments on deactivating this service, its child components, forcibly terminating svchost processes or deleting the file of the same name. As a result of such rash actions, problems can be much more serious (some programs will turn out to be inoperative, and the entire operating system may “fly”).
