Category Archives: Remote Desktop (RDP)

Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, Remote Desktop (RDP), WED Blog, Windows 11

Overcoming RDP Access Hurdles

June 27, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here at Chez Tittel, I’ve got 9 PCs in my office. 2 Desktops and 7 laptops, to be more specific. I like to access most of them from my primary desktop. That’s because it sports a couple of aging but still decent Dell 2717 Ultrasharp monitors. Over the years, I’ve encountered interesting issues in making RDP (remote desktop protocol) connections to my “Other PCs.” For me, overcoming RDP access hurdles usually involves one or more of three workarounds.

Three Workarounds to Overcome RDP Access Hurdles

These workarounds help to address a list of problems that include:

Can’t find remote PC
Can’t authenticate login credentials
Password error despite known, good working account/pwd pair

Workaround #1: Try the device IPv4 address

When the Remote Desktop Connection (or Remote Desktop app) simply can’t find a machine name, it’s always a good idea to try the target PC’s IPv4 address instead. As shown in the lead-in graphic for this story, it worked to get me into a Lenovo X380 Yoga I just put through a bunch of Windows 11 upgrades.

Workaround #2: Try a Different MSA

On occasion, when I try to login to a remote PC using my current Microsoft Account (MSA) it just won’t get past authentication. This is often a symptom of difficulty in getting MS authentication to work properly. When that happens, I will try another one of my known, good working MSAs (I have three, as I write this story). That does occasionally work, especially if I’ve already used that MSA on the target machine already. Go figure!

Workaround #3: Try a Local Account Instead of MSA

Sometimes, RDP will strenuously resist allowing you to establish an RDP connection over the LAN using a Microsoft Account (via its associated email address). In fact, it generates an account name/password error, even though I’m using a known, good working MSA account name and its associated password to try to login.

When that happens I’ve found that setting up a local admin account — one named, LocalU, for example — will get me right into the target PC. That’s also on display in the lead-in graphic where I had to use both workarounds at once to get into that PC. Sigh.

Remember: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

If you need to establish an RDP session on a remote PC, you can usually figure out a way to make such a connection work. If the preceding workarounds don’t do the trick, try the other tips in this 2021 WindowsReport story: it offers pretty good tips, tricks and advice.

Insider stuff, Recent Activity, Remote Desktop (RDP), WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

School PC Catch-up & Cleanup

May 27, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Earlier this week, the school year ended. Thus, I regained access to my Lenovo X390 Yoga laptop, which my son used as his in-school PC. As such things go, it wasn’t in terrible shape. But it had missed out on plenty of updates, including the upgrade to Windows 11. With all that effort behind me now — and a couple of interesting war stories to share — here’s the tale of a school PC catch-up & cleanup.

Tales of a School PC Catch-up & Cleanup

I was pleasantly surprised with the machine’s state upon its return. It wasn’t even that dirty. A quick wipedown with a wet-wipe sufficed to get the fingerprints and etcetera gone. A microfiber cloth did likewise for the screen and keyboard deck.

But boy, did it need a LOT of updates. And then there was the Windows 11 upgrade, which brought me face-to-face with at least one recurrent RDP gotcha, amidst some other interesting stuff.

What Didn’t Need an Update?

I ended up using three tools to cover most of the application updates. Of course, a visit to the Microsoft Store did likewise for the apps on this PC. Those three tools were KC Softwares Software Update Monitor (SUMo), PatchMyPC, and the built-in PowerShell winget utility. In the end, all 16 applications installed on the PC were updated, along with 54 (!) apps via the MS Store. Wow!

It was on the OS side of things where life got more interesting. After I caught up on the Windows 10 installation on the X390, I noticed that numerous prior upgrade attempts to Windows 11 had failed. Upon essaying same, I quickly realized why: Start10 was installed on that machine.

The MS installer apparently now requires that Start10 be uninstalled before the upgrade can proceed. Interestingly, earlier versions would let it through. (I had a couple of machines where Start10 would happily run on Windows 11, in fact). Uninstalling the application required some Task Manager shenanigans. I had to kill its parent process. That’s because uninstall otherwise requires a reboot and the upgrade install process was ready to fire off if the hurdle could be cleared.

A Few Bumps on the Upgrade Road

Then came the Windows 11 upgrade, which proceeded without issues this time. However, once again I could not use an MSA (Microsoft Account) to RDP into the upgraded PC. I had to set up a local account (with admin privileges). I also had to use the PC’s IP address as the target, because the machine name wouldn’t resolve. That’s interesting, because the names DO resolve in Nirsoft’s NetBScanner, as shown here:

As you can see both RyzenOfc and DinaX390 resolve inside NetBScanner, but neither name resolves inside RDP. Weird!

I’ll be filing feedback hub reports on those glitches later today. That’s it for now on “The Return of the School PC.” More will follow as I observe and learn more along the way…

Note Added 1 Day Later

I have gotten machine names to resolve on both problem PCs now. The Ryzen PC was affected by the recent lightning strike, and lost its network sharing settings and name resolution upon the next reboot. After running DISM /restorehealth and turning RDP off, then back on, it started working again.

On the X390, after I used RAPR to forcibly delete obsolete and duplicate drivers, then rebooted, the name resolution starting working there again, too. They now show up in positions 2 and 4 in the following set of File Explorer network PC icons:

I still can’t log into either machine using RDP with an MSA (Microsoft Account). Thank goodness the local account workaround (admin level accounts only, please) still does that trick! I’m guessing this is a separate issue and will report it to Feedback Hub accordingly.

Insider stuff, Networking, Remote Desktop (RDP), Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 11

RDP Goes MIA Following KB4014650 Update

May 11, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Yesterday (May 10) was Patch Tuesday. A plethora of updates hit for Windows 10 and 11 across most versions. Right now, various Windows news outlets are reporting issues with some of the updates just released. Naturally, I wanted to check to see if any of my PCs were affected, In reaching out to my various systems, I noticed RDP goes MIA following KB4014650 update to at least one of my Windows 11 Dev Channel PCs.

FWIW, that’s different from issues reported elsewhere (see this WindowsLatest story for an example). Most revolve around issues related to .NET Framework 3.5 problems.

Fixing RDP Goes MIA Following KB4014650 Update

On my Lenovo X12 Hybrid, the symptoms of trouble were easy to spot. Even though the Belkin Thunderbolt 3 dock remained plugged in, the system saw neither its GbE connection, nor the nominal 5TB HDD plugged into one of its USB-C ports. Thus I knew something was up with peripheral connections. Fortunately, an unplug/re-plug operation brought both the dock and the drive back into service.

One of my X380 Yogas was unaffected by the update, and RDP kept working as always. Amusingly, the second instance (both machines are identical except that one has a Toshiba/Kioxa SSD, while the other has a Samsung, of which both are OEM varieties) did not come up right away. A visit to Settings → System → Remote Desktop to turn Remote Desktop off, then turn it back on, did the trick for this machine.

Neither fix was a big deal: each was obvious and thus easily identified, and likewise easy to fix. I can only wish all my Windows problems were this lacking in subtlety and amenable to repair. Long experience teaches me otherwise.

Shades of Other Days & Other Fixes

I can remember days when Windows 10 updates would routinely mess with my Network and Sharing Center settings. Advanced sharing settings for Private, Guest or Public, and All Network elements would routinely revert to their defaults. So then, I would have to re-set them to the way I wanted them to be. This latest set of issues strikes me as something in that vein. Hopefully, it will be just a one-time blip rather than a new continuing gotcha. Time will tell: I’ll keep watching, and report what I find. Stay tuned!

Insider stuff, Remote Desktop (RDP), Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

MSA Login Doesn’t Connect Via RDP

March 3, 2022 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here’s an interesting problem that I apparently share with lots of people. Try searching on “can’t login to RDP” or “MSA login to RDP doesn’t work.” You’ll see what I mean. For me, MSA login doesn’t connect via RDP from my trusty Win10 production desktop to my new Ryzen 5800X build. Sigh.

So, of course I went through all kinds of contortions and research to try to get it working. I tried a variety of GPO settings, registry hacks and more, all without getting any love. I spent 45 minutes trying to make this work to no avail. Even though I double-checked my passwords (and in one case, reset it just to make darn sure) I kept getting errors. Either “The password used to connect to the remote PC didn’t work” or “The credentials didn’t work” (RDP app and mstsc.exe, respectively).

Words alone can’t convey the frustration in using a known, good, working password and getting such an error. Ouch!

When MSA Login Doesn’t Connect Via RDP, Use Local Account

Then, in several of the posts I read online, I noticed that similarly afflicted individuals succeeded in opening an RDP session using a local (client) account. So I set up a local account on the client PC using the “Add account” facility in Settings → Accounts → Other Users. Hint: you have to say you don’t know the user’s sign-in info to get to the right screen, where you choose the “Add a user without a Microsoft account” (MSA) to create a local account. Sigh again.

So, I created an account named LocalU, and then promoted it to Administrator status. Then, on my next RDP attempt into that PC the login succeeded using that account name and its associated password.

Even though you can’t always make Windows do exactly what you want, you can often find a way to get what you need through some workaround. This is actually a pretty good example. I can’t say I’m happy about this (and plan to report it to Feedback Hub next). But at least I can RDP into my new desktop. This will be very important when I start migrating files and stuff from the current production desktop to what will be my new production desktop next month.

Stay tuned! I’ll keep you posted as things progress in their usual “two steps forward, one step back” fashion. Should be fun…