Remote Desktop Sharing service slow to start?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Leif Bloomquist
  • Start date Start date
L

Leif Bloomquist

Hi all,

I'm setting up an application where the PC (XP SP2) is running in a
"headless" configuration (no keyboard or monitor). The user connects to
the PC with Remote Desktop Sharing from a Windows CE device, over a wireless
ad-hoc network. This part works very well.

However, I've noticed that the RDS service (or whatever it's called) takes a
very long time to start, or at least won't accept connections for a while.

The PC boots in under a minute (verified by connecting a monitor). Even
though XP is booted and sitting at the Login screen, it's still another
minute or so before I'm able to connect with RDS. But the ad-hoc network is
associated, and I can even ping the PC from the CE box right away.

Is there any way to make the RDS service start up and accept connections
faster/sooner, or is there some possible problem I should look into?

It's frustrating for the users, because it looks like the PC is booted
because the hard drive activity has stopped. Yet they have to make the RDS
connection attempt repeatedly until it lets them in. There doesn't seem to
be any further hard drive activity between XP booting and it accepting RDS
connections, so I have no idea what causes the delay.

Thanks,
Leif

--
Leif Bloomquist
leif(at)schemafactor(dot)com
http://home.ica.net/~leifb/

"Once secure, saturate the area with plasma mortars and spicy barbecue
sauce."
 
In Windows XP RDS service (which is actually called TermService) is
configured to start on demand. It is started by winlogon.exe after 1 munute
delay. It is impossible to change the delay time, but you can change
TermService startup type to "automatic".
In regedit open
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TermService" registry
key.
Change "Start" registry value from "3" to "2". Reboot.
Next time TermService should come up faster, but the overall boot time will
slightly increase.

Thx,
Sergey.
 
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