Remote Desktop Nightmare

  • Thread starter Thread starter Newbie
  • Start date Start date
N

Newbie

Hi All

Was just showing a colleague how easy Remote Desktop was to use when I
couldn't get the bloody thing to work at all!

To put you in the picture, the setup is a mix of WinXP Pro (majority) and a
few WinXP Home machines, which are all networked and can quite happily share
files between each other using standard network shares and can all get on
the Internet. None of them have any firewalls setup, as they are all
protected by a mass of firewalls and proxies at the other end of their
gateway/router box.

Just because the installer didn't know what standard to follow at the time,
a suite of 18 x WinXP Pro machines have 1 (computer admin) user account
each, but some user accounts are called KentHall and some are called Kent
Hall Jnr. The installer also can't remember if they gave the Administrator
a password when the machines were first booted up, but they are more
confident that they just left the password as blank, which I think they did.

So, I right-clicked on say WinXP Pro PC1's My Computer icon and set it to
allow remote desktop connections and looked at the user section and saw that
any computer admins could connect so I didn't need to add any entries.

I wen to Remote Desktop (via the Accessories section) on WinXP Pro PC2 and
tried to connect to PC1 using it's UDP (not sure this is the right ref)
name, which is ictpc1 with a login of KentHall and no password. Even though
the other PCs Desktop background appeared it then brought up an error
message saying an account restriction denied this or something like that.
Tried Administrator with no password - no luck. Tried the user account name
on the PC that I'm trying to connect to, eg Kent Hall Jnr, but still the
same error message appeared.

Tried to get a WinXP Home PC to connect to this PC1, but that brought up a
completely diff error message about no terminal service. I'm putting this
down to the fact that WinXP Home doesn't have the necessary components by
default so I don't want to mess about getting this one to work.

But why won't my WinXP Pro to WinXP Pro connection work?

Even though Remote Desktop access me for a login, is the system still
looking at the account that I'm logged into my machine?

If an administrator isn't set a password, does the system give it a default
one for security reasons?

Help!
 
By design Remote Desktop requires a user account that is an Administrator or
who is a member of the Remote Desktop Users Group *AND* the user account
must have a password.

--

Al Jarvi (MS-MVP Windows Networking)

Please post *ALL* questions and replies to the news group for the
mutual benefit of all of us...
The MS-MVP Program - http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights...
 
Newbie said:
Hi All

Was just showing a colleague how easy Remote Desktop was to use when I
couldn't get the bloody thing to work at all!

To put you in the picture, the setup is a mix of WinXP Pro (majority) and a
few WinXP Home machines, which are all networked and can quite happily share
files between each other using standard network shares and can all get on
the Internet. None of them have any firewalls setup, as they are all
protected by a mass of firewalls and proxies at the other end of their
gateway/router box.

Just because the installer didn't know what standard to follow at the time,
a suite of 18 x WinXP Pro machines have 1 (computer admin) user account
each, but some user accounts are called KentHall and some are called Kent
Hall Jnr. The installer also can't remember if they gave the Administrator
a password when the machines were first booted up, but they are more
confident that they just left the password as blank, which I think they did.

So, I right-clicked on say WinXP Pro PC1's My Computer icon and set it to
allow remote desktop connections and looked at the user section and saw that
any computer admins could connect so I didn't need to add any entries.

I wen to Remote Desktop (via the Accessories section) on WinXP Pro PC2 and
tried to connect to PC1 using it's UDP (not sure this is the right ref)
name, which is ictpc1 with a login of KentHall and no password. Even though
the other PCs Desktop background appeared it then brought up an error
message saying an account restriction denied this or something like that.
Tried Administrator with no password - no luck. Tried the user account name
on the PC that I'm trying to connect to, eg Kent Hall Jnr, but still the
same error message appeared.

Tried to get a WinXP Home PC to connect to this PC1, but that brought up a
completely diff error message about no terminal service. I'm putting this
down to the fact that WinXP Home doesn't have the necessary components by
default so I don't want to mess about getting this one to work.

But why won't my WinXP Pro to WinXP Pro connection work?

Even though Remote Desktop access me for a login, is the system still
looking at the account that I'm logged into my machine?

If an administrator isn't set a password, does the system give it a default
one for security reasons?

Help!
Click to expand...

Start with the basic stuff:
1. Create an account KentHall on each PC.
2. Give it the same password on each PC.
3. Allow KentHall RDP access you your Remote Desktop host.
4. If you're in a domain environment, make KentHall a member of
the Remote Desktop group.
5. Start a Command Prompt on PC1 and run these diagnostic commands:
ping pc2 (you should get a reply)
telnet pc2 3389 (you should get a blank screen)
mstsc /v:pc2:3389 (you should get a logon prompt)
 
Newbie said:
Hi All

Was just showing a colleague how easy Remote Desktop was to use when I
couldn't get the bloody thing to work at all!

To put you in the picture, the setup is a mix of WinXP Pro (majority) and a
few WinXP Home machines, which are all networked and can quite happily share
files between each other using standard network shares and can all get on
the Internet. None of them have any firewalls setup, as they are all
protected by a mass of firewalls and proxies at the other end of their
gateway/router box.

Just because the installer didn't know what standard to follow at the time,
a suite of 18 x WinXP Pro machines have 1 (computer admin) user account
each, but some user accounts are called KentHall and some are called Kent
Hall Jnr. The installer also can't remember if they gave the Administrator
a password when the machines were first booted up, but they are more
confident that they just left the password as blank, which I think they did.

So, I right-clicked on say WinXP Pro PC1's My Computer icon and set it to
allow remote desktop connections and looked at the user section and saw that
any computer admins could connect so I didn't need to add any entries.

I wen to Remote Desktop (via the Accessories section) on WinXP Pro PC2 and
tried to connect to PC1 using it's UDP (not sure this is the right ref)
name, which is ictpc1 with a login of KentHall and no password. Even though
the other PCs Desktop background appeared it then brought up an error
message saying an account restriction denied this or something like that.
Tried Administrator with no password - no luck. Tried the user account name
on the PC that I'm trying to connect to, eg Kent Hall Jnr, but still the
same error message appeared.

Tried to get a WinXP Home PC to connect to this PC1, but that brought up a
completely diff error message about no terminal service. I'm putting this
down to the fact that WinXP Home doesn't have the necessary components by
default so I don't want to mess about getting this one to work.

But why won't my WinXP Pro to WinXP Pro connection work?

Even though Remote Desktop access me for a login, is the system still
looking at the account that I'm logged into my machine?

If an administrator isn't set a password, does the system give it a default
one for security reasons?

Help!
Click to expand...

Start with the basic stuff:
1. Create an account KentHall on each PC.
2. Give it the same password on each PC.
3. Allow KentHall RDP access you your Remote Desktop host.
4. If you're in a domain environment, make KentHall a member of
the Remote Desktop group.
5. Start a Command Prompt on PC1 and run these diagnostic commands:
ping pc2 (you should get a reply)
telnet pc2 3389 (you should get a blank screen)
mstsc /v:pc2:3389 (you should get a logon prompt)

Hi

Only prob is that the teachers don't want it that they have to type in a
password when the PCs startup to get to the Desktop. They want to boot them
up and know they are ready for use whilst they get the children. Is my best
option to set a password for the administrator so that the machines will
startup 'as is' and I then can use administrator for my login?

How do I go about setting a pwd for the admin when it was originally set to
blank? Do I start the machine up in safe mode and then set up there or can
I do it in normal mode? Just can't see the main admin account in user
account.

Thanks
 
Back
Top