Cause for Remote Desktop Connection Failure?

Question

I have encountered the following problem with a Vista x64 machine. Connecting to the machine via Remote Desktop just stopped working (probably after a windows update) – was working one day, not the next. On investigation found:

• Services manager reports Terminal Services service as Automatic and Started
• netstat –a –n shows port 3389 not open -Event log shows the error “Terminal Service start failed. The relevant status code was No such interface supported”

Best suggest fix I can find is to add the Network Services account to the administrator group:

net localgroup "Administrators" "NT Authority\Network Service" /add

This works, but can’t be very secure and I’d like to find a proper explanation and fix.

Solution

In my research for this question it looks like everything has to do with the Network Service Account suddenly not having enough permissions to access the network or becoming corrupt in someway.

Maybe you can try This link which will reset your VISTA security settings.

You can also try restoring an old registry copy if you have one, you would need to boot into the recovery console to replace the files in c:\windows\system32\config

Comments

[squillman]

So, just to be clear, you're saying you're having a problem connecting TO the Vista machine with RDP? Or are you saying you're having a problem connecting to other machines FROM the Vista machine via RDP?

[CPU_BUSY]

From what you describe it sounds like the machine comes up way before the network

[RedBlueThing]

@squillman Connecting to the Vista machine with RDP. (i'll clarify the question).

[RedBlueThing]

@UndertheFold Not sure what you mean ? I can connect from the machine to the network, just can't connect to the machine via RDP (hopefully my edit clarified that ambiguity).

[nray]

Re: adding Nework Services to local Adminstrators group. I have real concerns over escalating the priviledges of a built in account like Network Service - that account has the restrictions it does for a good reason. Jack B Nimble's tip about KB313222 sounds like better practice.

[Brent Ozar]

Are you using the firewall? Did you try disabling it?

[RedBlueThing]

Thanks for the comments guys. I was certainly not happy with the local admin group solution (hence the question). Jack's solution worked like a charm.

[Wagh]

I know of issues with nVidia drivers that cause Remote Desktop to fail. The login attempt would start then immediately fail without any info. The only solution was to role back the drivers on the REMOTE machine. forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=67147