Remote Desktop Settings Inconsistent

I am hoping you fine people can hep me with a really odd Remote Desktop issue that has me baffled and I can't seem to find anything on the subject searching for it, which seems even more bizarre, you'd think someone has run into this before. Anyway, without further ado,

When you look at the control panel setting for remote desktop, it is set and all is fine



and you go and check in Windows 10 settings, it is set and matches the control panel settings above



but when you check here under system settings, it shows that is off



and this seems to be overriding all the others with regards to accessing the system, don't know why. flip it to on and you get the confirm



but choose confirm and nothing happens, literally nothing and goes back to what you saw above, flipped off



anyone have an idea what in the world is happening here? this is only happening on this machine which is normally working decent, so even more confusing.



Windows 10 Pro

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For sake of completeness here is the current Group Policy settings, which as you can see are not set and open, so it shouldn't be the cause of this (I don't believe)



the blurb on the "Allow users to connect remotely ..." states:

If you do not configure this policy setting, Remote Desktop Services uses the Remote Desktop setting on the target computer to determine whether the remote connection is allowed. This setting is found on the Remote tab in the System properties sheet. By default, remote connections are not allowed.

so the ones from the control panel should take over, right? which is set to allow.

and while I was at it, figured, let's take peek at the registry because why not right? So many moving parts might as well get it out of the way.

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server

weird because it seems to suggest that `fDenyTSConnections` is set to True (in this case 0 because it is Deny) and maybe should be `1` (as in disable deny)? Am I reading this right and is this possibly the issue? But why everywhere it is set to be allowed but somehow this would be set to deny it? Is there a disconnect somewhere?

On a lark I decided to go ahead and disable the deny and see what happens by setting it to `1`



still nada, so I have no other place I know to look, ideas appreciated

Hello, please verify that following services and it's dependencies are not disabled:

1. Remote desktop services
2. Remote desktop configuration

after that if the switch doesn't work start those services manually and try again.

To open services management console type services.msc in Windows search box and run as Administrator

zebal said:

Hello, please verify that following services and it's dependencies are not disabled:

1. Remote desktop services
2. Remote desktop configuration

They are "Manual" but were already started, I didn't have to start them.

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sygnus21 said:

Yeah, that is weird. It that Windows 10 Home or Pro?

Yeah it is Pro like I said and I don't have issues with any of the many machines I have running it, this is the only one behaving this way. I am a developer and need to access many disparate machines, so I use RDP quite often as most of the remote machines are on Windows Servers and easier that way and for a few machines, I even use TeamViewer, never with any issues, but for some reason can't RDP into this one no matter what.

I would try to set them to automatic startup, then restart both services and try again.
next verify windows firewall rules are set up (predefined ones, inbound), if you use 3rd party firewall disable it and enable Windows firewall and allow all outbound which is the default.

try to connect from other computer regardless of ON/OFF switch since the services are running, the switch is there only for convinience to start services.

sygnus21 said:

Yeah, that's messed up.

Indeed, the registry flip was ignored, it was reverted just like the "off" switch, so that was a bust.

The only thing I can offer, and seeing you messed with the registry in trying to solve the issue, is trying a repair install. This allows you to keep your personal data and most of your apps while fixing and resetting things - Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

Yeah that one setting was the only thing I messed with and the Registry is a playground I spend a lot of time in, so I am ok there. But none the less, realizing that this system hadn't updated since 1909, force updated it to 20H2 and voila now it works basically in effect an "in-place upgrade" so whatever the ghost in the machine was, for now seems to have hit the road but will keep an eye on it.

Oh , before a the repair install, go back to your first image and "Select Users...". Windows should tell you you're already added (assuming you're the admin of the machine). If not, add yourself and see if that helps. Good luck.

Oh no problem there, I am the admin user that I am trying to connect to and always says "so and so already has access", in this case I am the so and so but yeah we do have a couple machines on which we have to give others access too, so gotcha. Thanks for looking at it with me though, was hoping I could figure it out as unknowns bug the hell out of me, but at this point getting back to function was the priority so I had to move on but it would have been nice to know what was causing it.

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zebal said:

I would try to set them to automatic startup, then restart both services and try again.next verify windows firewall rules are set up (predefined ones, inbound), if you use 3rd party firewall disable it and enable Windows firewall and allow all outbound which is the default.try to connect from other computer regardless of ON/OFF switch since the services are running, the switch is there only for convinience to start services.

So after the "upgrade", they are still set to manual and working fine now so probably not the issue but will keep that in mind if it happens again. With regards to the Windows Firewall, it is not the primary Firewall but none the less both IT and the one we use were disabled, effectively no firewall at all on that machine and still didn't work, so I am pretty sure that wasn't the issue as the ports were configured to go through the Firewall anyway and work fine on all the machines in our network with the same configuration, but a good call, that was one of the first things I checked. And I did think about ignoring the switch since the other screens showed it configured, but alas no luck, so that's why I said it seems that ugly switch is ultimately taking precedence over all others and what genius coding decided to bork it is beyond me but that's Windows for you. Luckily we are over it now and I hope it holds but should it creep up again, we will tackle it with all the recommendations and see if we can figure out what's corrupting it. Thank you.

sygnus21 said:

Glad you got it sorted out. In a funny kind of way the update pretty much did what the repair install would have done.... you just got an upgrade with it Good luck

You are right, seems it was overdue and maybe it was the universe's way of getting me to do it.