Problem with Remote Desktop XP to Vista

[flls05]

For the past couple of years we have had remote workers happily working on our office computers (all with XP SP2) using Remote Desktop. Recently, we have added a Vista machine to the mix and no one is able to connect to it.

Here are some details:

All of the machines trying to remote in have XP SP2. One is an XP Home Media Center machine all the others are XP Professional and have the latest version of Remote Desktop

The Vista machine has Vista Ultimate which was ugraded from Vista Home Basic.

The Vista machine has been configured to allow remote access,allowed users added, authentication not required, enabled sharing, firewall turned off.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[Sooner Al]

Make sure you configure the Vista Remote Desktop host PC to not require the use of NLA, ie. check the Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure) checkbox...

http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/ScreenShots/XP/RDP6-XPClienttoVistaServerConfig.jpg

Conversely make sure the XP RDP 6.0 client is configured like this...

http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/ScreenShots/XP/RDP6-XPClientSettings.jpg

Beyond all of that what error message do you get when you try to connect?

[flls05]

I have tried all of your suggestions but still no luck.

This Vista machine had been upgraded from Vista Home Basic to Vista Ultimate so we thought maybe it had something to do with that. We had an issue with losing the functionality of the speakers after the upgrade and thought maybe this was a clue there was a problem with the upgrade. I have recently been at the machine's location and did a clean install of Vista Ultimate. The speakers now work, but still no luck with connecting remotely.

So....I'm not sure where to go from here.

These are the settings on the Vista Ultimate machine:

Remote Desktop Connection ->

Advanced -> Always connect even in authentication fails

Terminal Services Gateway -> Automatically detect TS Gateway server settings.

Computer -> right click -> Properties

Remote Settings ->

Remote Assistance -> Allow Remote Assistance connections to the computer

Remote Desktop -> Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop

Select Users -> We have added the users we want to be able to connect to this computer. All the users exist on both the Vista machine and their respective XP machines. All have passwords.

Is there anything else I have missed or another direction I can take?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Sooner Al]

See this page for some basic troubleshooting information. It was written for XP but most of it will be pertinent...

http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/RemoteDesktop/RemoteDesktopSetupandTroubleshooting.html#Troubles hooting

How are the remote users connecting to the office LAN, ie. a VPN for example?

If it is a VPN can you ping the PC through the VPN tunnel after connecting?

Is there any other type of firewall software or anti-virus/anti-trojan software like OneCare Live or Cisco VPN client running on the PC?

Can you connect to it from another PC on the same LAN using its private LAN IP address?

As an FYI these settings on your Vista Ultimate Remote Desktop host PC are only for connecting to another PC via Remote Desktop. They have no bearing or influence on incoming Remote Desktop connections...

Remote Desktop Connection ->

Advanced -> Always connect even in authentication fails

Terminal Services Gateway -> Automatically detect TS Gateway server settings.

[flls05]

First to answer your questions -

We are connecting to the remote machines using Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol. Our connections run through a Linksys router.

Windows Firewall is disabled. We use Norton AV 2007. Curiously though, when looking at the Windows Security Center on the Vista machine it shows a firewall turned on. When looking at the details of that, it says that the Norton Antivirus firewall is turned on although we don't use a Norton firewall product.

We have the ability to connect to the Vista machine from another PC on our Lan using Windows RDC.

Now, for my good news - after manually changing the listening port on the Vista machine (through the Registry) to match what we have set in the router configuration I can remotely connect to it. I don't remember having to manually change this on our XP machines but it has been a couple of years since I set those up and maybe I have just forgotten. However, since changing the listening port on the Vista machine I have lost the ability to connect to it from another PC on our LAN. I'm not sure why that is but solving that problem is not quite as urgent!

Thanks for all of your help.

[Sooner Al]

Well if you change the listening port on the Vista RDP host machine then you need to address it using the private LAN IP address and append the new port number on the end using a colon character to seperate the fields. Example using a new listening port of 4401 versus the default 3389:

privateLANIPAddress:ChangedPortNumber

198.162.1.25:4401

Its the same when addressing from a remote location, ie. you need to append the new listening port number to the public IP address of the router.