Comments on: New RDP client: Remote Desktop Connection 6.0 for Windows XP

By: ankur Gaur

ankur Gaur — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:06:59 +0000

What is the importance of domain in Remote Connection

By: TonyB

TonyB — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:55:33 +0000

I have gone back to the old RDP client, much better!

By: Steph Jones

Steph Jones — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:17:32 +0000

I feel your pain TonyB. We have multi-domains, multi-terminal servers across trusts. Its unviable and unreasonable to expect users to maintain (or remember) which domain to log on to for various terminal servers. This is why the hardcoding of domain:s: in the .rdp file is so critical for us.

But, despite being first reported back in 2006, we are almost in 2008 and nothing, despite an RDP update to 6.0 being released in the meantime.

By: TonyB

TonyB — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 23:42:43 +0000

Because this new rdp 6 client sets the “log on to” drop down to local host and then uses “domainname\username” to logon in to the domain, this stuffs up Citrix logons. You login to citrix ok but when you start an application and that app trys to logon to the terminal server, the rdp 6 client has set the “log on to” drop down to the local host, so the users logon fails. They have to manually set the “log on to” drop down to the domain name before they can get it. What a pain! Is there anyway to fix this?

By: JohnnyJ

JohnnyJ — Tue, 15 May 2007 08:32:48 +0000

Here is a blog entry that describes how to disable the “enter your credentials” question:

http://sogeeky.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-disable-credentials-prompt-of.html

By: Indrayanto Suharko

Indrayanto Suharko — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 05:24:18 +0000

The new Remote Desktop Connection 6.0 update won’t install on Windows Server 2003 SP2. Anyone can gimme the link to install it on Windows Server 2003 SP2?

By: Ken W

Ken W — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 01:24:58 +0000

And to the best of my knowledge, there is no command line option, no registry parameter that does anything to aleviate matters.

As much as anything, I’m curious how it got released with such a stupid user interface. I’d love to hear the explanation.

I use Vista. By and large, I like what they’ve done with it. Nearly all of it makes more sense than this.

/kenw

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 20:45:01 +0000

Ken, you’re right; the RDP client by default tries to authenticate you on the local server. I agree that it is “suboptimal�? that it doesn’t show you the available domains to logon. It is comparable to Vista’s logon screen. I’ve been complaining about it sometime ago.

By: Ken W

Ken W — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 12:54:20 +0000

Two points:
1) Michael says “By the way, the RDP client doesn’t “guess�? the computer name. It just uses the last setting.” Not sure how he gets that, or what he means by “last”. The computer name that is defaulted — and I’ve never seen it other than a computer name, not domain — is there the first time I connect, and the next time it’s back to the same computer name, regardless of how I override it.
2) The default is virtually always wrong, and would be better if it didn’t default at all. This issue is not that it can’t be overridden — it can. The issue is that it’s a waste of time and shouldn’t be necessary.

With the old client, I didn’t need to enter the domain or computer name at all. With the new one, I have to either override the default and guess or look up the correct spelling of the name of the domain I’m connecting to, or deliberately let it error out, click YES on the error message to connect anyway, so that it fall back to the old behavior (local logon), let that error out and change the logon to domain instead of local, and finally, log on.

It works, but it’s a complete, useless, irritating waste of time, and is sure as %^$#^ isn’t an improvement in any way.

/kenw

By: Dennis L

Dennis L — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:43:46 +0000

Michael, thanks for working through this. It does indeed work as DOMAAIN\USER in the Username: field.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:03:42 +0000

I just tried it now with a VPN connection. Domain-name\log-name works, .\logon-name doesn’t work because the RDP client will use the name of the desktop computer. If you want to logon on a member server and not on the domain you have to enter server-name\logon-name. By the way, the RDP client doesn’t “guess�? the computer name. It just uses the last setting. I hope that solves your problem.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 18:33:24 +0000

I think I got your point now. I can’t try it now because I’m on the way, but can’t you just enter your credentials this way: domain-name\logon-name. If you want to logon locally you can use .\logon-name. I think this change is related to the way you login on a Longhorn server. It is like under Vista.

By: Ken W

Ken W — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 18:00:46 +0000

Just to clarify a bit more:

You say “Then you have to click on “Other user�? because the RDP client guessed the name of the server wrong? What name did it guess?”

The point is, it shouldn’t guess the name of the SERVER at all. In domains, you normally don’t log onto the server — you log onto the domain. When logging onto any system that is a domain member, if it’s not a DC, you can log onto either the local system or the domain. On a DC, you can ONLY log onto the domain. In the latter case, defaulting to the server name can NEVER work — there is no local SAM unless you’re in AD recovery mode, and you’re extremely unlikely to be doing that remotely.

When connecting to a host on a remote domain, the new RDP client gets it wrong in both cases, because it always defaults to using the host name. That default is only appropriate for remote hosts that are not domain members.

/kenw

By: Ken W

Ken W — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:48:16 +0000

Dennis has it right. The RDP client seems to always use the remote host name as the default logon domain name, when the remote host is in a domain other than the local domain. It makes no sense for domain members. And I really have to wonder how that got through QC.

/kenw

By: Dennis L

Dennis L — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:43:40 +0000

Sorry for what looks like SPAM!

On the old RDP you could specify the DOMAIN as part of your login credentials.

By: Dennis L

Dennis L — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:42:56 +0000

Domain: BINGO

By: Dennis L

Dennis L — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:42:23 +0000

For me, the RDP client assumes the domain of the server itself:

server=BINGO
domain=CASINO

User: Administrator
Password: youwish

Effective login credentials under the new RDP are:

User: Administrator
Password: youwish
Domain: BINGO

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:11:58 +0000

Ken, sorry I missed your last comment somehow. I am still not sure if I understand yours and Dennis’ problem. You mean that the server name shows before your account when you enter the credentials? Then you have to click on “Other user�? because the RDP client guessed the name of the server wrong? What name did it guess?

By: Dennis L

Dennis L — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:54:34 +0000

Yeah, so. No solution for the ‘improved’ version huh? I am in the same boat as Ken W, RDP to many remote systems across VPN.

By: Ken W

Ken W — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:54:20 +0000

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I’m referring to the domain name of the user ID you log on with, on the remote host.

It’s not an issue on hosts within your local domain. But I do a lot of administration via VPNs to other domains. Nearly every time I go to log on, I have to specify, delete or change the domain name of user ID, because the new client guesses wrong. On the old RDP client, it was never an issue.