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If you have problems using Remote Desktop (RDP) with your Windows server, there are a couple of things you can fix. This troubleshooting guide aims to help rule out some of the most common causes for poor functionality.
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Even while you might have trouble connecting using Windows Remote Desktop, you should always be able to log in to the web console at your UpCloud control panel, or by VNC connection, which settings are at your server details.
Once you’ve connected to your server, through either of the methods mentioned above, you should be greeted by Windows lock screen. Sign into your server with an account that has administrator privileges to continue troubleshooting.
If the connection shows something other than the lock screen, try if the server seems responsive. If it does not react to commands you might have to restart your server.
When you are logged in and the server seems to be working, but Remote Desktop still cannot connect, make sure a remote connection is allowed. The easiest way to get to the option is to open sysdm.cpl by searching for it on the start menu. Then move to the Remote tab.
The Remote Desktop needs to allow connections from other computers for the feature to work. If your server was set to allow remote control with Network Level Authentication, make sure your own computer supports this or select to allow any connection. You can find more information about Network Level Authentication at Microsoft’s TechNet.
While still at the RDP settings, check the allowed users by clicking the Select Users or by pressing S. All users with administrator access are automatically permitted to connect. All normal users must be added to this list. If you were trying to connect with user credentials that do not have admin rights, add the username you wish to connect with to the list of allowed users.
The Windows Firewall might be a little restrictive at times, for example, inbound ICMP protocol that ping connections use are disabled by default. Open the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security by searching for “firewall” in the start menu. Move to the Inbound Rules list and scroll down to Remote Desktop rules by pressing R.
Windows Server 2008 should show two rules: Remote Desktop (TCP-In) and Remote Desktop - RemoteFX (TCP-In). Both of these would in most cases be enabled as long as the server still uses the standard 3389 TCP port for RDP connections.
With 2012 Windows Servers the rules are split between Domain and Private, or Public profiles as well as TCP and UDP protocols, which translates to 4 separate Remote Desktop - User Mode rules, all of which would usually be enabled.
Optionally while at the firewall settings, you may wish to enable ICMP for ping. Press F to find the rules, called File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request - ICMPv4 - In) and v6 for both IP versions.
When you are certain that the Windows Firewall allows Remote Desktop connections, also check the server specific firewall settings at your UpCloud control panel. If you have set the default incoming rule to reject, remember to add a rule to permit traffic to the port Remoter Desktop server is listening to, 3389 by default. Find out more about the UpCloud firewall at the tutorials.
Test the internet connection on your server to make sure all your network resources work as they should. Start to ping out from your server. Open the Command Prompt and type cmd in the start menu search. Press enter then use the command below.
ping 8.8.8.8
If you enabled the echo requests from Windows Firewall, you can also attempt to ping your server from your own computer. Find the server’s public IP address on your UpCloud Control Panel under Network and Public Network.
In case the internet connection does not seem to work, check your IP configuration on Command Prompt with the following command.
ipconfig
The output will list all of your servers network connections, you should see 3 Ethernet adapters: the private network, public IPv4 and public IPv6. Check that these match with the network information in your server details under Network tab at your UpCloud control panel.
If you see differences in the ipconfig output and your server network details page, check that all network interfaces are set to obtain the IP addresses automatically. To do this, search for Network Connections in the start menu and press enter to open it. Open the Properties for one of the Ethernet adapters, select Internet Protocol Version 6 or 4 and click on Properties button underneath. Make sure both radial buttons are set to automatic and press OK to save. Check through all of the network adapters on the server the same way.
If your Remote Desktop connection works, but feels slow or disconnects at times, you should try updating the network drivers. Download the latest Virtio drivers for Windows.
After downloading the ISO file on your server, with Windows Server 2008 you will need to have a program like 7zip to unpack it. On Server 2012 you can simply mount the file as a disk.
With the files available, open the Device Manager simply by searching for it by name in the start menu and pressing enter. Browse down to Network adapters, select each adapter one by one and run the Update Driver Software. In the update wizard, select Browse my computer for driver software, enter the driver location to the search field and press next. Note to keep the Include subfolders selected.
If you were connected through Remote Desktop while updating the network drivers, you’ll probably get disconnected for a moment. The client should be able to restore the connection automatically after the drivers have been installed successfully.
In some cases, it is possible that another application unintentionally uses the same port as Remote Desktop. This can cause connection issues or prevent Remote Desktop from connecting.
Check the ports used by programs. Enter the command below on Command Prompt.
netstat -a -o
Netstat will print out a list of IP addresses and port numbers they use. Look for rows with your Remote Desktop port number (3389 by default) and check the program ID (PID) at the end of these lines. One PID will belong to the RDP service. If you see another PID that uses the same port, these will conflict with one another.
To find out which programs the PIDs belongs to, use the following on Command Prompt.
tasklist /svc
Remote Desktop is listed as svchost.exe TermService, any other PID that uses the same port number causes issues.
If there is a port conflict, you can resolve it by changing the port used by one of the applications. Microsoft recommends to ideally change the port used by any other applications. If this is not possible, the port number Remote Desktop listen to can be changed with a couple of steps.
Change the port number because it can also help to reduce intrusion attempts through obfuscation. This should not be your only method of security.
To change the port number, you’ll first need to choose a free port not used by anything else on your server. Check the ports currently in use with netstat -a -o as described previously. The new port number can be anything from 1024 through 49151.
Add the port number you’ve selected to the Windows Firewall Inbound rules by creating a new rule. In the New Inbound Rule Wizard, select the following
In the steps above the <port number> is the new port you wish RDP to listen to. Make sure your new firewall rule is set up correctly. Once you change the RDP port you’ll need it to work to be able to connect again.
The port number for Remote Desktop was not designed to be changed, and the only way to do so is through editing registry. We highly recommend that you make a backup of your server before making any changes.
Open the editor by searching for regedit in the start menu and pressing enter.
Locate the following key in the registry file system.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlTerminal SErverWinStationsRDP-TcpPortNumber
Open the PortNumber registry key for edit, change the display to Decimal, enter your new port number and click OK to save the changes.
For the changes to get applied, you will need to restart the RDP service. Open Services again by searching for it in the start menu and pressing enter to run the program.
In the Services (Local) list, scroll down to find Remote Desktop Service, and restart it. A confirmation popup asks to restart other related services as well, click Yes to continue.
You will get disconnected if you were using RDP to make these changes. Afterwards just reconnect to your new port by defining it in the Computer field on RDP connection.
windows.server.example.com:34567
With the new port, you should get uninterrupted reliable remote access.
If you ran into deeper trouble or need help with something else, don’t hesitate to ask. When you contact UpCloud Support, try to explain the problem to the best of your ability. Include any steps you’ve already taken together with their results when you troubleshooted the issue. It will help our support team to solve your problem.
Comments are closed.
bolokang marambe
Hello,
I am using Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Server, where Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains 2013 is hosted. Everything has been working so smooth until 2 days back, when client computers cannot connect to the server through remote desktop connection. When you ping the server from client you get reply and vice-versa. I have checked if remote desktop connection is enabled, i have ran out of ideas. please help.
George
Hi, How can I avoid RDP Session Ids greater than a certain number or keep RDP Session Ids within a range? I want customers to fall directly into a website logged-in area , and that is supported via cookies loaded after a username/password is entered. Problem with RDP is that the cookie remain at the RDP Session Id where it has been entered, and is not seen by other Session IDs. Eve if I limit the number of connections to ” 5″ at Group Policy Editor and access the server 5 times via RDP , enter in Username/password in all those sessions, and then disconnect them all at once, and try a new re-connection, I might get a new Session Id “6” that will not have been given the Username/Password in a a previous access, and as a result, when I access the server I am NOT logged in the internal area of the website. I have been trying man GPEDIT configurations but there’s always a chance a new connection will get a Session Id which has not been logged before. I think I can use brute force and log n to all Session Ids that come up in the horizon while I am using 5 ports, but It will be a nightmare later on, with 50 ports.
A real solution would be sharing cookies across RDP Session Ids…. Is that anyway that can be achieved? I have looked around hard yesterday and still no clue how to achieve that …. Thanks Much
Mohammed Rafi
Hi Janne,
While connecting 2012 server RDP it is closing within a seconds for the particular user under domain and for other users its working fine. Please suggest me to fix the same.
Steve
We have a situation where a user logs in to a remote session. If another user then tries to log into their own session, the first user is notified that someone else wants the connection. The second user cannot login without terminating user 1’s session. It seems to be the case only for user 1. What can we look at to fix this?
Naz ahmed
Hi, i have similar issue where i am trying to rdp from windows 2008 r2 to Windows 2016 data centre serfer but i get “this computer can not connect to the remote computer” error. I can connect to the same windows 2016 from windows 7 and windows 2012 without any issues. I can also telnet over port 3389 from windows 2008 r2 server to the target Windows 2016.
If i make a reg change on Windows 2016 to enable TLS 1.0, then i can connect but i dont want to do this on target server as we know TLS 1.0 is absolute. Any suggestions would be highly appreciated. Thanks,
Naz
tom
Thanks for such a beautiful post, very informative and useful article
Jaya
Am also facing same issue that RDP conecting intermittenly. Couldnt find any soultion till now. Any help will be highly appreciated.
Jan
Hi, I have another problem not listed here (or on some other sites…).
I want to connect to Win7.
If I use RDP from WinXp, it logs me automatically (automatic logon with the WinXP credentials).
But when I want to use RDP from my Win10 machine, I need to log-in manually, the automatic logon does not work. On all machines I have the same credentials.
It is annoying to log-in manually all the time. From WinXp it was much easier. Can someone help me to find-out the reason?
Thanks
Dan
After I click connect, it goes through the process and says that it can’t connect for 1 of 3 reasons.
1. Server is not enabled. 2. The remote computer is turned off. 3. The remote computer is not available on the network.
I checked the firewall, it was fine/allowed. I checked whether remote desktop was enabled in System Properties and it was. Not sure what it could be. (It worked a few weeks ago. But the usernames were changed. I checked to make sure they were correct. But it does not log me in).
Manish
Hi
Thanks great post.
I was able to check and found issue with ip using ipconfig. This allowed me to reach the screen for password. Once that is done it gives an error ” The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted”
Using 3390 as the port number since we have 2 servers on the same network.
Thanks
Nik
Hi,
Thanks for post.
Currently i am testing Remote Desktop services, I have facing following issue:
From client computer i am able to run following application such as paint, calculator and notepad.
I have a another windows application but when i tried to run via client side it just open a black windows and application is not starting at all.
I am testing in windows 2016 server.
Please could you let me know where to look to fix this issue.
Thank you
Ian Jones
Hi . Great post , since windows 10 1903 update users been unable to initiate a remote access session. Able to ‘see’ and select the remote computer and the remote session window opens but does not initialise j. Checked the usual, firewall and permissions and all in order. Any ideas ?!?
Thanks
Moses
Hi I disabling RDP driver and now if i connect to remote connection the screen is blank. How to fix it
Jason
Hi, nice post. None of them worked for me as I tried to log in through a remote desktop from school. When I kept trying to log into it, it kept asking me to enter my credentials through the windows security thingie multiple times but I can’t seem to get through.
Please could you give me any ideas of why this is happening, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks
sriram N
Hi janne,
i unable to connect the server through remote desktop but i can able to access the server through
like TeamViewer,Premium Remote Control software application are working fine.
Please advice what need to do for this issue and error showing like “getting error disconnect code 264”
sterci
Hi Janne! I’m searching for a solution to prevent users to do a remote desktop to our TS server without blocking users to use the remoteApps. I’ve tried to use policies “Deny Logon Locally” and “Deny logon trought remote desktop” without success.
I also found a solution to execute “logoff.exe” after logon but we are using windows 2019 Server and I’m surprise that MS didn’t implement somwthing in this direction yet.
Do you have news about this issue?
Thanks!
Natalia P
Hi Janne, thanks for great article.
I have a little bit weird issue when I am trying to connect to the Remote Desktop and it is behaving quite weirdly. So on the very beginning when I logged in through the remote web access it worked fine. Since then it was not going through while trying to connect with an error saying:
The Remote Desktop can’t find the computer “name”. This might mean that the “name” computer does not belong to the specyfied network. Veryfy the computer name and domain that you are trying to connect to. ”
Which is weird in the light that it was working well an hour before that.
I took the laptop I am using to connect to the office, connected through independent wifi, works great there, while I got back home it worked twice and then stopped again. I also tried to connect on other laptop at home and it is ending up with the same error. What kind of issue it might be? Any firewall? My wifi itself? Is it possible that just the pc at work is going ‘sleep’ and blocking the connection. I am really frustrated that it works after i take it to the office. It doesn’t really make sense.
uma
whenever i do RDP ,server is getting rebooted..If you have solution let me know.thank you
djamila_st
Thanks for all the research paper it was very informative.!!
Rakesh Rewar
Hello Janne, Thanks for the great article,
I have upgraded TLS 1.0 &1.1 to TLS 1.2 to remediate the vulnerabilities on 2008 and later servers where all servers were using port 3389 (RDP), after reboot I’m unable to RDP some of the servers, could you please suggest something that RDP could be used on TLS 1.2 instead 1.0 or 1.1?
Thank you in well advance.. :)
Luis Rojo
Hi
Excellent article Janne I hope that you can help me.
I have a trouble with RDP in my windows server 2016 std. The Remote Desktop services are running in the snap-in “services” but the port is not listening (port 3389) and in the log of “windows-TerminalSevices-localsessionmanager” shows “Remote Desktop Service start failed. The relevnt status code was 0x80070005”.
I applied all the steps that you described here and other like are showing in the next link.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/troubleshoot/rdp-error-general-troubleshooting
Obviusly, also I have restarted a lot of times the server and the RDP Service but the results are the same: the RDP port don´t open or pass to listening state.
Do you have some idea about how resolve this trouble?
alisbah
the solution you provide are so good and helpful. thanks
Jeremy
Janne, thank you for all your help.
I am running into a problem with a handful of computers on my network with regard to shadow sessions. Most computers on the network I can shadow no problem, but some just begin to load RDP and then disappear. The loading doesn’t freeze, it acts like it has completed but an RDP session never comes up. I have group policies set for all domain computers and the version of Win 10 doesn’t seem to play a factor. I also do not believe it is a graphics problem as I have multiple identical computers, some of which shadowing works and some do not. Do you have any suggestions?
Gnaneshwar Gaddam
Wonderful article! Thanks for sharing this useful guide.
Steve Jeromos
Hello Janne.. When signing out of a remote session, rdc leaves me on a black screen that I have to close twice to get it to actually close. This happens with a disconnect as well. Is there any settings that can fix that?
Thanks,
Steve
amel sm
Useful stuff . many Thanks .!
Amanda
So I am working remotely and having a strange issue. When I connect to Wifi and then to the VPN, I am able to connect to the servers, shared drives, and AD. When I connect via ethernet, I still can connect via VPN. However, I am not able to connect to the servers, shared drives, or AD. I am able to ping the servers perfectly. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
kamir bouchareb st
very good
Sivakumar
Hi ,
I have moved from Chennai to Coimbatore. In Chennai I was using ACT broadband connection.
My RDP was working fine. After moving to Coimbatore I have taken a new connection in Railwire broadband . I am facing the RDP slow connection isssue. If i connect using mobile internet , remote desktop is working fastly. The Railwire Broadband connection speed is 100Mbps. Eventhough RDP is working slowly. Need a solution. Kindly help.
pranay
Hi whenever I connect to remote desktop within 1-2 min I ger error message “your network configuration does not allow https port. contact your network administrator for help allowing those ports or disabling web proxy, & then try connecting again.” every 1-2 min this pop up comes & it is very annoying. I connect to remote desktop using a secured VPN.
On my personal laptop remote desktop works fine but on office laptop above error keep coming every 1-2 minutes
can you help me with that
Brown
Hello! My RDP works fine until I start surfing webpage with lot of animation. Every time I visit webpage with an animation I have the same error: “Your session ended because of a data encryption error. If this keeps happening, ask your admin or tech support for help.” Cant solve this, please help.
Paraphraser
most problems i usually solve with troubleshoot
Abdul Moeed
I have experimented with windows 10 pro, windows server 2012 r2 and windows server 2016 and having same problem that is I/users cannot access outside in any third location. The moment I change from local internet, Remote desktop session does not connect for example I can connect to RDS on my phone through my local internet/wifi but the moment I change it to 4G or neighbours wifi it does not connect . I do not have static IP at the moment can that be the reason? AfterI researched it showed that you have double NAT. Could this be reason??
My aim is to allow users to have access to the server in 2 different location in my warehouse
Kindly help if you can. I been trying to understand the issue for months and can’t seems to fix as I have tried various forums for help
razika.mekki
most problems i usually solve with troubleshoot
nabila_ghersallah
Good article, Thank you.
ultimate
Hi All
I’m having a lot of issues with remote desktop performance over MS sstp vpn.
When i try and access only 1 specific vlansubnet where i host 5 remote app servers
I can barely move the cursor and the connection quality shows poor on the rdp session.
However when ever i access the servers from our corporate office no issues with rdp session or performance.
Srinivasan
Hello Janne,
We are having a strange problem with RDP service. It is a VM and we are able to access the server through VM console. The services are not started but when we try to start RDP or any service, it wont start or the server is not responding to any command execution.
Vikki
We run RDP for out two servers to approximately 20 plus computers on our site here. We run Jonas platform for our main software program to process daily operations and all reports etc. It seems that at times they will leave a POS station unattended for a few minutes and then go back to ring up something and the item will come up but no price…yes I verified the price was in the POS item itself and it hasn’t done this before last night. Is there something that can cause this that we could reset or adjust the setting on. It reminds me of when your session lags or has lost part of the process but not all of it. I would really like to know more details of how this works and the settings that are in there, so we could analyze and figure out what is what.