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JediBecker

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My Remote Desktop stopped working -- how to fix?

I've used Remote Desktop to connect to my work machine for years.  As of two days ago, it stopped working.  To be more specific, when I try to connect to it now, I click the "Connect" button, and then nothing happens.  No error message.  No "failure to connect."  It just doesn't do anything.

Some relevant facts:
- This is all on our work network (both via VPN and when I'm in the office)
- I can remote desktop successfully to many other machines in the office
- I did just recently install LogMeIn on the computer, but it did work after that for a few days.
- I have LogMeIn disabled at this point, just to be sure, though.
- I did just install XP SP3, but it worked after that for awhile.

My problem is I can't think of how to debug this.  There is nothing in the event logs.  There seems to be no verbose or debug mode for mstsc.exe.  I'm stuck.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
-Dave
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JediBecker

ASKER

Incidentally, I just came across the portqueryui.exe app.  Here is the result of running that and checking for port 3389.  I'm not sure if remote desktop is TCP or UDP, though, so I'm not sure what to make of this.  Hopefully it helps someone smarter than me out there...

Starting portqry.exe -n 127.0.0.1 -e 3389 -p BOTH ...
Querying target system called:
 127.0.0.1
Attempting to resolve IP address to a name...
IP address resolved to localhost
querying...
TCP port 3389 (unknown service): LISTENING
UDP port 3389 (unknown service): NOT LISTENING
portqry.exe -n 127.0.0.1 -e 3389 -p BOTH exits with return code 0x00000001.

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SysExpert
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It is quite likely that sp3 is the problem as it has a number of known unresolved issues which I imagine will not be fixed for a while yet.
Thanks for the ideas, guys.

I eventually did see something in an event log that rdpdd.dll was failing (though it only gave a warning, oddly).  That led me to some Googling, where I find that the latest nVidia driver can cause this, and I had recently upgraded it.  I rolled back the driver, and voila, remote desktop is working fine again.

Thanks!
-Dave
JediBecker,
Thank you for the update!  This was excellent as I had the exact same problem.  I use RDC all the time from work and struggled to find out why it quit.

Everything works beautifully now.  After rolling from nVidia Driver 175.16 back to 169.21 everything work perfectly!  In fact I beleive it solved my problem with Star Craft (Broodwar) as well, as it was freezing.

Thanks again!
No problem -- I'm so happy it helped someone else besides me!

-Dave
could you just confirm if it is the macine you are connecting from or connecting to that you changed the drivers on please?
Good question.  It was the machine I was connecting TO.
Well what do you know.  Found this forum post that completely fixed this problem for me with the NEW driver:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=67147&st=60&p=409535&#entry409535

(the relevant post is on that page, and copied here):
This problem is not specific to any one graphics company. It can probably happen with printer drivers too.

The root of the problem is that the session image space is too small and it can't load any more drivers into it. The session image space is shared for the display driver drivers and printer drivers. rdpdd = remote desktop protocol display driver.

You can fix this bug by increasing the size of the session image space via a registry key. Add the following key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]

"SessionImageSize"=dword:00000020

0x20 == 32 MB works on my system anyway.
U can try Team Viewer as it can works behind firewall and even u don't need to port forward