Troubleshooting Establishing a Remote Desktop Connection

1. You may be limited in the number of users who can connect simultaneously to a Remote Desktop session or Terminal
Services session

Limited number of RDP connections can be due to misconfigured Group Policy or RDP-Tcp properties in Terminal Services
Configuration, by default, the connection is configured to allow an unlimited number of sessions to connect to the server. When
you try to make a Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) you get the following error:

Remote Desktop Disconnected.

This computer can't connect to the remote computer.
Try connecting again. If the problem continues, contact the owner of the remote computer or your network administrator.

To verify that Remote Desktop is enabled:

1. Under Tasks, click Remote settings.

2. Click the Remote tab. Under Remote Desktop, Select either option depending on your security requirements:
o Allow connections from computers from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure)
o Allow connections from computers only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level
Authentication (more secure)

If you select 'Don’t allow connections to this computer' on the Remote tab, no users will be able to connect remotely to this
computer, even if they are members of the Remote Desktop Users group.

1. Start the Group Policy snap-in, open the Local Security Policy or the appropriate Group Policy
2. Navigate to the following location
Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Terminal
Services > Terminal Server > Connections "Limit number of connections"
3. Click “Enabled”. In the TS Maximum Connections allowed box, type the maximum number of connections you want to
allow, and then click OK.

To verify Terminal Services RDP-Tcp propertiesDepending on the version of your operating system, please follow the steps
below:

Setting via Terminal Services Configuration

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Terminal Services Configuration.
2. In the console tree, click Connections.
3. In the details pane, right-click the connection for which you want to specify a maximum number of sessions, and then
click Properties.
4. On the Network Adapter tab, click Maximum connections, type the maximum number of sessions that can connect to
the server, and then click Apply.

To verify Terminal ServicesLogon rights:

Configure the Remote Desktop Users Group

The Remote Desktop Users group on a Terminal server is used to give users and groups permission to remotely connect to an
Terminal server.

You can add users and groups to the Remote Desktop Users group in the following ways:

 Local Users and Groups snap-in

 On the Remote tab in the System Properties dialog box on an Terminal server
 Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in, if the Terminal server is installed on a domain controller

You can use the following procedure to add users and groups to the Remote Desktop Users group by using the Remote tab in the
System Properties dialog box on an Terminal server.

Hal : 1
Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, on the Terminal server that you plan to configure, is the minimum
required to complete this procedure.

To add users and groups to the Remote Desktop Users group by using the Remote tab

1. Start the System tool. To start the System tool, click Start > Control Panel > System Icon and then click OK.
2. Under Tasks, click Remote settings.
3. In the System Properties dialog box, on the Remote tab, click Select Users. Add the users or groups that need to
connect to the Terminal server by using Remote Desktop. The users and groups that you add are added to the Remote
Desktop Users group.

If you select “don’t allow connections to this computer” on the Remote tab, no users will be able to connect remotely to this
computer, even if they are members of the Remote Desktop Users group.

To add users and groups to the Remote Desktop Users group by using Local Users and Groups snap-in:

1. Click Start > Administrative Tools, Open Computer Management.

2. In the console tree, click the Local Users and Groups node.
3. In the details pane, double-click the Groups folder.
4. Double-click Remote Desktop Users, and then click Add.
5. In the Select Users dialog box, click Locations to specify the search location.
6. Click Object Types to specify the types of objects you want to search for.
7. Type the name you want to add in the Enter the object names to select (examples) box.
8. Click Check Names.
9. When the name is located, click OK.

Note:

 You can’t connect to a computer that's asleep or hibernating, so make sure the settings for sleep and hibernation on
the remote computer are set to Never. (Hibernation isn't available on all computers.) For information about making
those changes, see Change, create, or delete a power plan (scheme).
 You can't use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to a computer using Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic,
or Windows 7 Home Premium.
 Members of the local Administrators group can connect even if they are not listed.

2. You may have a Port assignment conflict

This problem could indicate that another application on the terminal server is using the same TCP port as the Remote Desktop
Protocol (RDP). The default port assigned to RDP is 3389.

To resolve this issue, determine which application is using the same port as RDP. If the port assignment for that application
cannot be changed, change the port assigned to RDP by editing the registry. After editing the registry, you must restart the
Terminal Services service. After you restart the Terminal Services service, you should confirm that the RDP port has been
correctly changed.

Terminal Server Listener Availability

The listener component runs on the terminal server and is responsible for listening for and accepting new Remote Desktop
Protocol (RDP) client connections, thereby allowing users to establish new remote sessions on the terminal server. There is a
listener for each Terminal Services connection that exists on the terminal server. Connections can be created and configured by
using the Terminal Services Configuration tool.

To perform these tasks, refer to the following sections.

Determine which application is using the same port as RDP

You can run the netstat tool to determine if port 3389 (or the assigned RDP port) is being used by another application on the
terminal server.

Hal : 2
To use netstat:

1. On the terminal server, click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
2. At the command prompt, type netstat -a -o and then press ENTER.
3. Look for an entry for TCP port 3389 (or the assigned RDP port) with a status of Listening. This indicates another
application is using this port. The PID (Process Identifier) of the process or service using that port appears under the PID
column.

To determine which application is using port 3389 (or the assigned RDP port), use the tasklist command-line tool along with the
PID information from the netstat tool.

1. On the terminal server, click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
2. Type tasklist /svc and then press ENTER.
3. Look for an entry for the PID number that is associated with the port (from the netstat output). The services or
processes associated with that PID will appear on the right.

Change the port assigned to RDP

You should determine if this application can use a different port. If you cannot change the application’s port, you will have to
change the port assigned to RDP.

Important: Microsoft does not recommend changing the port assigned to RDP.

If you have to change the port assigned to RDP, you must edit the registry.

To perform this procedure, you must have membership in the local Administrators group, or you must have been delegated the
appropriate authority.

To change the port assigned to RDP:

Caution: Incorrectly editing the registry might severely damage your system. Before making changes to the registry, you should
back up any valued data.

1. On the terminal server, open Registry Editor. To open Registry Editor, click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click
OK.
2. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click
Continue.
3. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations

Note: RDP-TCP is the default connection name. To change the port for a specific connection on the terminal server, select the
connection under the WinStations key.

1. In the right-pane, double-click the PortNumber registry entry.

2. Type the port number that you want to assign to RDP in the Value data box. PortNumber is entered as a hexadecimal
value.
3. Click OK to save the change, and then close Registry Editor.

Restart the Terminal Services service

For the RDP port assignment change to take effect, stop and start the Terminal Services service.

To perform this procedure, you must have membership in the local Administrators group, or you must have been delegated the
appropriate authority.

To stop and start the Terminal Services service:

Hal : 3
 1. On the terminal server, open the Services snap-in. To open the Services snap-in, click Start, point to Administrative
Tools, and then click Services.
2. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click
Continue.
3. In the Services pane, right-click Terminal Services, and then click Restart.
4. If you are prompted about restarting other services, click Yes.
5. Confirm that the Status column for the Terminal Services service displays Started.

Confirm that the RDP port has changed

To confirm that the RDP port assignment has been changed, use the netstat tool.

To use netstat:

1. On the terminal server, click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
2. At the command prompt, type netstat -a then press ENTER.
3. Look for an entry for the port number that you assigned to RDP. The port should appear in the list and have a status of
Listening.

Important: Remote Desktop Connection and the Terminal Server Web Client use port 3389, by default, to connect to a terminal
server. If you change the RDP port on the terminal server, you will need to modify the port used by Remote Desktop Connection
and the Terminal Server Web Client. For more information, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base Articles:

 How to change Terminal Server’s listening port

 How to configure the Remote Desktop client to connect to a specific port when you use Windows XP
 How to change the Listening Port in the Windows Terminal Server Web Client

Verify

To verify that the listener on the terminal server is working properly, use any of the following methods.

Note: RDP-TCP is the default connection name and 3389 is the default RDP port. Use the connection name and port number
specific to your terminal server configuration.

Method one

Use an RDP client, such as Remote Desktop Connection, to establish a remote connection to the terminal server.

Method two

To use the qwinsta tool to view the listener status on the terminal server:

1. On the terminal server, click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
2. At the command prompt, type qwinsta and then press ENTER.
3. The RDP-TCP session state should be Listen.

Method three

To use the netstat tool to view the listener status on the terminal server:

1. On the terminal server, click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
2. At the command prompt, type netstat -a then press ENTER.
3. The entry for TCP port 3389 should be Listening.

Method four

To use the telnet tool to connect to the RDP port on the terminal server:

1. From another computer, click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.

Hal : 4
 2. At the command prompt, type telnet servername 3389, where servername is the name of the terminal server, and then
press ENTER.

If telnet is successful, you will receive the telnet screen and a cursor.

If telnet is not successful, you will receive this error:

Connecting To servername...Could not open connection to the host, on port 3389: Connect failed

The qwinsta, netstat, and telnet tools are also included in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. You can also download and
use other troubleshooting tools, such as Portqry.

3. You may have an incorrectly configured Authentication and Encryption setting

Configuring authentication and encryption

Use the following procedure to configure authentication and encryption for a connection.

1. On the Terminal Server, open Terminal Services Configuration. To open Terminal Services Configuration, click Start,
point to Administrative Tools, point to Terminal Services, and then click Terminal Services Configuration.
2. Under Connections, right-click the name of the connection, and then click Properties.
3. In the Properties dialog box for the connection, on the General tab, in Security layer, select a security method.
4. In Encryption level, click the level that you want. You can select Low, Client Compatible, High, or FIPS Compliant. See
Step 4 above for Windows Server 2003 for Security layer and Encryption level options.

Note

 To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer, or you must
have been delegated the appropriate authority. If the computer is joined to a domain, members of the Domain Admins
group might be able to perform this procedure. As a security best practice, consider using Run as to perform this
procedure.
 To open Terminal Services Configuration, click Start, click Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then
double-click Terminal Services Configuration.
 Any encryption level settings that you configure in Group Policy override the configuration that you set by using the
Terminal Services Configuration tool. Also, if you enable the System cryptography: Use FIPS compliant algorithms for
encryption, hashing, and signing Group Policy setting, this setting overrides the Set client connection encryption level
Group Policy setting.
 When you change the encryption level, the new encryption level takes effect the next time a user logs on. If you require
multiple levels of encryption on one server, install multiple network adapters and configure each adapter separately.
 To verify that certificate has a corresponding private key, in Terminal Services Configuration, right-click the connection
for which you want to view the certificate, click the General tab, click Edit, click the certificate that you want to view,
and then click View Certificate. At the bottom of the General tab, the statement, "You have a private key that
corresponds to this certificate" should appear. You can also view this information by using the Certificates snap-in.
 The FIPS compliant setting (the System cryptography: Use FIPS compliant algorithms for encryption, hashing, and
signing setting in Group Policy or the FIPS Compliant setting in Terminal Server Configuration) encrypts and decrypts
data sent from the client to the server and from the server to the client, with the Federal Information Processing
Standard (FIPS) 140-1 encryption algorithms, using Microsoft cryptographic modules. For more information, see FIPS
140 Evaluation (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=34627).
 The High setting encrypts data sent from the client to the server and from the server to the client by using strong 128-
bit encryption.
 The Client Compatible setting encrypts data sent between the client and the server at the maximum key strength
supported by the client.
 The Low setting encrypts data sent from the client to the server using 56-bit encryption.

You cannot completely disconnect a Terminal Server connection

After a Terminal Server client loses the connection to a Terminal Server, the session on the Terminal Server may not transition to
a disconnected state, instead, it may remain active even though the client is physically disconnected from the Terminal Server. If
Hal : 5
the client logs back in to the same Terminal Server, a totally new session may be established, and the original session may still
remain active.

To work around this issue, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type gpedit.msc, and then click OK.
2. Expand Computer Configuration, expand Administrative Templates, expand Windows Components, expand Terminal
Services expand Terminal Server and then click Connections.
3. In the right pane, double-click Configure keep-alive connection interval.
4. Click Enabled, and then click OK.
5. Close Group Policy Object Editor, click OK, and then quit Active Directory Users and Computers.

4. You may have a Certificate Corruption

Terminal Services clients may be repeatedly denied access to the terminal server. If you are using a Terminal Services client to
log on to the terminal server, you may receive one of the following error messages:

Error message 1

Because of a security error, the client could not connect to the Terminal server. After making sure that you are logged on to the
network, try connecting to the server again.

Error message 2

Remote desktop disconnected. Because of a security error, the client could not connect to the remote computer. Verify that you
are logged onto the network and then try connecting again.

Additionally, the following event ID messages may be logged in Event Viewer on the Remote Desktop server:

Event message 1

Event ID: 50

Event Source: TermDD

Event Description: The RDP protocol component X.244 detected an error in the protocol stream and has disconnected the client.

Event message 2

Event ID: 1088

Event Source: TermService

Event Description: The terminal services licensing grace period has expired and the service has not registered with a license
server. A terminal services license server is required for continuous operation. A terminal server can operate without a license
server for 90 days after initial start up.

Event message 3

Event ID: 1004

Event Source: TermService

Event Description: The terminal server cannot issue a client license.

Event message 4

Event ID: 1010

Hal : 6
Event Source: TermService

Event Description: The terminal services could not locate a license server. Confirm that all license servers on the network are
registered in WINS/DNS, accepting network requests, and the Terminal Services Licensing Service is running.

Event message 5

Event ID: 28

Event Source: TermServLicensing

Event Description: Terminal Services Licensing can only be run on Domain Controllers or Server in a Workgroup. See Terminal
Server Licensing help topic for more information.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems
might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added
protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more
information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base:

322756 How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

To resolve this issue, back up and then remove the X509 Certificate registry keys, restart the computer, and then reactivate the
Terminal Services Licensing server. To do this, follow these steps.

NOTE: Perform the following procedure on each of the terminal servers.

1. Make sure that the terminal server registry has been successfully backed up.
2. Start Registry Editor.
3. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\RCM
4. On the Registry menu, click Export Registry File.
5. Type exported- Certificate in the File name box, and then click Save.

NOTE: If you have to restore this registry subkey in the future, double-click the Exported-parameters.reg file that you
saved in this step.
6. Right-click each of the following values, click Delete, and then click Yes to confirm the deletion:

Certificate
X509 Certificate
X509 Certificate ID
X509 Certificate2
7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the server.
8. Reactivate the Terminal Services Licensing server by using the Telephone connection method in the Licensing Wizard.

Hal : 7