Cannot RDP to cloned Windows 2008 R2

Odd. You may want to try disable and then re-enable the remote desktop access? Are you running any other software on there? Maybe Antivirus that includes its own firewall?

Might try run "netstat -an" and look for a listening port on 3389 as well.

Let me know how that all turns out.

What happens when you try to RDP to the server? Are you getting an error?

Have you tried RDP with the IP address instead of the name of the server?

The server in question is not listening on pert 3389 and for the life of me I cannot get this configured.  Does one really have to go down the devcon.exe route to do this?  I'd be grateful for a suggestion.

BTW - RDPing with IP also fails and the error message is generic  ..  "Remote Desktop can't connect tot he remote computer for one of these reasons:......"

You should be able to enable RDP this should open port 3389 in firewall automatically. Any AV on the server?

See if this applies:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954398

Or this:

http://forums.techarena.in/windows-server-help/541656.htm

I removed SEP (AV) but this had no effect.  

The registry key, MaxOutstandingConnections, referred to in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954398 was not found at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server but I did find it at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet002\Control\Terminal Server with a value of 150.  I removed the key to see if this would allow RDP connections to the server but it didn’t.

I attempted to import HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server from a server without the RDP issue but the import failed with an error, “...Not all data was successfully written to the registry.  Some keys are open by the system or other processes.” I got the same result when in attempting the import in Safe Mode.

I verified that port 3389 is in the registry and I tried changing this to a different port number but also without success.

When I originally cloned the server I removed it from the domain, ran sysprep with the Generalize option and rejoined it to the domain.  I repeated this process to cover any errors the first time it ran.
So, while I thank you for your suggestions I’m still unable to RDP to this server.

What about the other properties in there? Do they look similiar to the working 2008 server? Particularly "fDenyTSConnections" should be 0.

I assume that you have enabled RDP in from the REMOTE tab of System properties? If so, try to disable it and then re-enable it.

I found fDenyTSConnections in three locations.  The value in the first two was 1 and the third was 0.  I made changes so all values were 0, rebooted but still no luck with RDP.  I once again disabled RDP from the Remote tab of System properties, rebooted and re-enabled.  Still no luck with RDP.  I still cannot get port 3389 to listen.

I'm thinking this issue is related to the server being a clone.  One thing I do notice is that, soon after this machine boots, I see a system tray popup saying:


So, I went into RD Session Host Configuration and noticed two connections.  The first was, ICA-TCP which is a Citrix ICA 3.0 connection.  This must have been a hangover from the cloning process.  I was not able to delete it but I did disable it.  The second was RDP-Tcp which is a Microsoft RDP 7.1 connection type.  I disabled this also but the process had no effect.  Still could not RDP to server.

I fear its time to build a new server from scratch.  I give it another day or two.  Thanks again for your suggestions.

Do you have a proper licensing server setup?

We have a Citrix licensing server setup but this cloned server is not configured to point to it at this time.  Eventually this server will have xenapp6 software on it, at which time I will point it to the licensing server.

The server's OS is activated through Microsoft.

Do you have a TS Licensing server? The problem seems to be that you don't have any licenses to allocate to allow to connect using RDP

Yes I do but that I didn't think that was a factor as I am trying to establish an RDP connection only to administer the server and Microsoft licensing offers two of these connections free.

Yeah but if I remember right once you enable RDS licensing if license server isn't present you aren't able to get in.

What is the error you are getting now when trying to access?

I verified the RDS License server is present and configured identically as the server it was cloned from.
The error I get is:
"Remote Destop can't connect to the remote computer for one of these resasons:   1) REmote access tot he server is not enabled
                  2) The remote computer is turned off
                  3) The remote computer is not available on the network
Make sure the remote computer is turned on and connected to the network , and that remote access is enabled."

This is the error I have always seen with this issue.  The server does not show any other problems I can ping it and I can RDP from it.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverTS/thread/37299e00-9e61-4154-8d42-1dc6d7b6cdd1/

It is possible that NIC settings were lost and/or corrupted during the first cloning pocess.  I may have disconnected the NIC before bringing up the vm as I noticed that its settings were not displaying correctly eventhough I could ping into and from it.  

With the second 'clone' I created I did not disconnect the NIC before powering on the machine and its settings displayed correctly.  

Because the source vm had been part of a Citrix farm I believe this was why the clone looked for a Remote Desktop License server.