Computer challenge: Connect me to this computer with Remote Desktop

Factual Questions
1

My company has purcahsed many new systems (all win XP Pro SP2) and I have been setting the up and upgrading end users’ existing systems.

One of the new boxes will not accept RD connections. This is the only one I have ever had problems with.

Things I have tried:
• System -> Properties -> Remote -> Enable Remote Desktop
• Configured a UID with administrative privileges to log on
• The above didn’t work so I expressly added the UID to the RD group
• Confirmed the host system was connected. I can ping to it and from it. I can connect to other computers from it using RD
• Connected to domain
• Played with the firewall to allow connection
• Tried to connect to it through browser after configuring RDC from Microsoft help site
• Changed port it was using and configured the firewall to accept
• Disabled and restarted the Terminal Server service
• Confirmed that netstat –an |find “3389” was working
• Attached another system directly to the box with a crossover cable and attempted to connect
• Some miscellaneous changes that basically amounted to playing around out of frustration, including playing with group policies and registry entries
All of the above changes have been removed. I rolled back to the restore point that came with the box so it is now as clean. No programs have been installed on it.

I know that I could use another program to do the same thing but, as Robin says in “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” said, “That’s not the point. It’s the principle of it.”

Any help?

2

What happens when you try to connect? Error message, blank screen?

Can the machine connect to itself via terminal services (remote desktop) ? Try using both the local IP address as well as the loopback (127.0.0.1)

Is the response different when terminal services service is running vs. when it isn’t?

Anything in any of the Event Logs ?

3

Also, I’ve never experimented it but have you tried sending out an “invitation” to connect from the problem machine ? XP has this feature.

4

Instead of shooting in the dark I would now attempt to actually narrow down the problem. Try some Sysinternals widgets such as TCPView [1] and Process Explorer [2]. Together they should allow you to determine exactly where your connection isn’t happening.
[1] http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/TcpView.html
[2] http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

5

I get an error message “The connection was ended because of a network problem. Please try connecting to the remote computer again.” Not the most helpful.

With the terminal service stopped, the message is something like “The connection could net be established.”

I just tried the following:
The machine can not connect to itself. It says it can not create an RD connection while already logged in to the console.

The event viewer records a data encryption error that corresponds to MS knowledge base 323497. The resolution is to delete some registry values but I only have one of the three values specified.

I am about to try deleting the value to see what happens. If that fails, I will hit the sites that alterego posted.

6

Deleting the registry key and rebooting fixed the problem.

Thanks for all the suggestions.