RDC Problem

[Andrew Hayes]

"The client could not connect to the remote computer".

Both client and server are W2K3SP1 member servers. It had been working on
the server but then the NIC went belly up and it was replaced it. Now I
cannot use RDC to connect to the server.

Some quick analysis shows the reason for not connecting is that
"ms-wbt-server" isn't listening on port 3389 like it's supposed to when I
use NETSTAT, but I don't know why not.

Terminal services service is running and remote desktop is enabled. I
haven't used Last Known Good Configuration, so it's not the ControlSet001
missing problem. But maybe there is some relation to the hardware changing?
Does the registry for Terminal Server contain some kind of hard-link to the
NIC?

Any other ideas?

[Andrew Hayes]

OK. Found the answer after noticing that the problematic server had a
lanatable key in the registry for Terminal Server, but none of the other
servers I RDC to did.

Found this:

Lots of sites on the internet discuss how to enable remote desktop in
Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server, but the majority of them require
you to have physical access to the computer first. So how do you enable
remote desktop when you do not have physical access to the computer. It
is all to do with the registry!
1. Make a network connection to the remote computer to ensure that you
have administrative access to the machine (i.e. \\computer\c$). This
will prompt for a username and password of the administrator. Enter the
correct details.
2. Start the registry editor regedit.exe (and not the older application
regedt32.exe if it exists - it does not in later releases of Windows)
3. Choose File, Connect Network Registry
4. Enter the computer name as above.
5. Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server for
the registry settings for the remote computer (take care not to select
your own desktop)
6. Double-click fDenyTSConnections.
7. Change the value of this setting to 0 to enable Remote Desktop or 1
to disable it, and click OK.
8. If your remote computer has multiple network cards and you want to
ensure that Remote Desktop is operating only on a selected card then
navigate to the following registry location: (as
above)\WinStations\RDP-Tcp and note the LanAdapter value. If this is 0
Remote Desktop operates on all networks, and if this is another number
then it operates only on the network as identified in the (as
first)\lanatable registry key
9. Disconnect the remote computer from the registry editor using File,
Disconnect Network Registry, and selecting the correct remote computer
in the list.
10. Finally, one of two options. Option A is quicker:
A. Connect with Manage Computer to the remote PC (right-click "My
Computer", choose "manage", right-click "Computer Management (Local)"
and "Connect to another computer". Enter the name of the remote
computer). Then from the Services node, start the Remote Desktop Helper
service. This will cause Remote Desktop to start and read the relevant
registry key. This is particularly helpful because it allows one to get
Remote Desktop working without even restarting the machine.
B. If this fails, then you can always restart the computer remotely.

In my case, the \WinStations\RDP-Tcp\LanAdapter value was set to 1, which
was the lanatable entry for the old network adapter. I reset it to 0, since
the machine only has one NIC, and did Option A and was able to connect
again.