Possible to do OPENQUERY without named pipes?
Most likely, the error is just because you didn't change the order for the netlibs to be tried on the calling SQL Server. It will then try Shared Memory, TCP and finally NP. If all fails, then you will get the error for the last one tried, i.e., Named Pipes.

I.e., this is a general "cannot connect to the SQL server" (from the source SQL server to the destination server) error and should be troubleshooted as such. This and this are good resources.

In other words, OPENQUERY does not require Named Pipes.