I hate to post other sites on here, but the following is most likely the why and how of what you are running into.

http://paulgrevink.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/ms-sql-2008-r2-issue-impossible-to-modify-a-maintenance-plan/

Paul Randal may explain it better than anyone else

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In the off chance the firewall is not completely off, you should add port 1433 to the Windows Firewall.

Have you verified that both SQL Servers "Allow remote connections to this...

I would agree with foxxo, in that a reinstall would be the most simple solution.

However, if you are up for a taking a risk, I recall the location of the...

Have you looked at the Job History in the Activity Monitor? This should show how long each step (you stated your job had multiple steps) is taking as compared...

Activity Monitor can be found in the Object Explorer under the Management folder.

You can close all the connections prior to your restore, but more than likely SQL Agent is reconnecting...

Is the backup part of a Maintenance Plan in which you have more than one database being backed up in it? Are all of the databases within the Maintenance...

Are you attempting to upgrade to SQL Server Enterprise Edition 64-bit?

Are you able to see the Maintenance Plan if you connect to the server from another instance?

Do you have a backup of the msdb database to restore to?

Gail - what if it were a system database, in particular the master database?

Jr. DBA

One thing to watch for with Maintenance Plans is when you have a particular plan being utilized across many databases and you add or drop one of those databases, the...

We use a tool called Apex SQL Diff. It was once reviewed by this very site.

http://www.apexsql.com/sql_tools_diff.aspx

XP_CMDSHELL allows you to run OS commands via T-SQL

What you wanted to do was either

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;

GO

RECONFIGURE;

GO

sp_configure 'Agent XPs', 1;

GO

RECONFIGURE

GO

OR since you are familiar with the Surface...