CTRL + ALT + DEL on Remote Desktop

Accessing the Task Manager through Remote Desktop - CTRL + ALT + DEL

Today I tried to access my work PC from home through Remote Desktop over a VPN.

However when I logged in the page was totally black.

No menus, no taskbar, nothing to press nothing to see.

Was the PC out of memory and couldn't show me anything or just bust. I needed the task manager on that PC to see what was going on.

To send CTRL - ALT - DEL over a remote desktop connection to get to your task manager, see running processes and open or close programs then you need to be able to send that command over the connection. And if you don't know the keystrokes it's not simple if you don't know it.

There are two ways to access this.

1. If you can see the task bar in the footer of your remote screen just right click on it and hit taskbar to open it up.

2. If you cannot see anything use the following combination of keys: CTRL + ALT + END. This will bring up the same screen as if you had hit CTRL + ALT + DEL on the computer.

You can choose to shut down, reboot or show the task manager.

Why it's those keystrokes I don't know as it's not intuitive but it works and it's good to remember and write down if you forget.

Re-Starting Windows Explorer Remotley

If your windows explorer has crashed or killing your remote computers memory or CPU you can kill the process in the task manager and restart it without rebooting.

Just follow this.

Kill the run away windows process.
Wait a few seconds.
In task manager go to the "Applications" tab.
In the bottom right corner select the "New Task" button.
In the dialogue that opens up type "explorer" in the "open" text box. This will open a new instance of Windows Explorer.

Remember killing processes is not advisable as killing a process means the normal shut down functions of that application have not run and this could mean that files are left on your disk, keys in your registry and so on - so only do it if you really need to.

A clean up of your registry with a tool like CCleaner afterwards and regular de-fragmentation of your disk is advisable if you regularly use this method as it will keep your PC clean and fast.

Remote Desktop Access Denied Error

Troubleshooting Issues with Remote Desktop / Terminal Services


This morning I tried remotely accessing my work PC which is always left on from my home laptop.
However after my first attempt I was met with the following error which appears om the login screen on the remote PC.

"the refereced account is currently locked out and cannot be logged on to"

I tried pinging the PC and could get a response fine but running the reboot command:


shutdown -m \\mypcname-r -f

I just got an "Access Denied" error.

I could login fine the night before and I hadn't installed anything new. I ran a virus scan which didn't pick anything up.

After connecting to the Virtual Private Network (VPN) I tried running the following command from the RUN prompt.


\\mypcname\c$

But it returned a popup screen with the following message.

"The system detected a possible attempt to compromise security. Please contact the server that authenticated you"

Obviously this was some kind of mistake and from searching the web it seems the problems comes about due to the machine I'm using to access the remote PC which was on a domain and was using different credentials than what I was trying to use to access the resource.

From Microsofts own Knowledge Base article 938457: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938457

Symptom: When you try to include security settings for a user from a different domain in a local domain folder, you receive the following error message:

The system detected a possible attempt to compromise security. Please ensure that you can contact the server that authenticated you.

Note: This problem may also occur when you try to browse the Active Directory directory service listings for the nonlocal domain.


Cause: This problem occurs because the network firewall filters Kerberos traffic.


Resolution: To resolve this problem, configure the network firewall so that TCP port 88 and UDP port 88 are not blocked for either domain.

My Firewall was not blocking these ports but I had no idea what had happened the other end on the servers at work.

To get access back I tried terminal servicing into a different computer from my laptop which I knew I had access to. I could gain access to this PC.

Once I had remotely accessed another computer on the network I ran the following reboot command which when run from my own laptop gave me an "Access Denied" error.

I ran the reboot command

shutdown -m \\mypcname-r -f

I then tried pinging the PC from my laptop and couldn't access it so I knew it was rebooting.

After a while the PC came back online and I could re-gain access to it.

I checked the event logs on both machines and found the following items of interest.

On the Remote PC (I couldn't access)

The Terminal Server security layer detected an error in the protocol stream and has disconnected the client. Client IP: 10.0.9.121.

That IP relates to our server that manages domains om our network.


From looking at the event log on my own PC I could see the following errors at around the time I tried remotely accessing the work PC.

08:32.01
The server could not bind to the transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{AE7A7B4B-3EED-4D2A-B123-1A4F4AB04698} because another computer on the network has the same name. The server could not start.

08:32.03
CoID={C5816EC8-C2E8-4710-A412-F7ECDBC25C42}: The user me successfully established a connection to OurCompanies VPN using the device VPN3-1.

08:32:08
The time provider NtpClient is currently receiving valid time data from domainserver.domain.company.co.uk (ntp.d|0.0.0.0:123->10.0.7.1:123).

08:32:12
The server could not bind to the transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{AE7A7B4B-3EED-4D2A-B123-1A4F4AB04698} because another computer on the network has the same name. The server could not start.

08:33
The password stored in Credential Manager is invalid. This might be caused by the user changing the password from this computer or a different computer. To resolve this error, open Credential Manager in Control Panel, and reenter the password for the credential DOMAIN.COMPANY.CO.UK\me.

08:33.11
The server could not bind to the transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{AE7A7B4B-3EED-4D2A-B123-1A4F4AB04698} because another computer on the network has the same name. The server could not start.


I have since managed to reboot my work PC and home laptop and connect successfully but I hadn't changed my password so I guess it was an issue at the company on their network that caused the problem and looks like an issue with the domain controller and Kerberos which is a network authentication tool designed to use strong authentication for client/server applications by using secret-key cryptography.

Here are some helpful articles related to the same subject if this method doesn't fix the problem for you.

http://www.bluemoonpcrepair.com/wp/?p=20

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938457

Problems connecting to Remote Desktop over a VPN

Troubleshooting issues with Remote Desktop connections

By Strictly-Software

I have just experienced and finally resolved a problem that started suddenly last week that prevented me from connecting to my work PC from my laptop at home using Terminal Services / Remote Desktop.

The problem started suddenly and it has made little sense for the last week. The symptoms were:

• A virgin media broadband Internet connection.
• A windows XP laptop connected to my broadband over a wireless connection.
• My laptop could access the VPN without any problem and it could also access the PC in question over a windows share e.g \\mycomputer\c$
• Trying to connect using a Remote Desktop connection returned a "this computer cannot connect to the remote computer" error message.

As far as I was aware nothing had changed on my computer and I first though that maybe a virus was blocking the port or a windows update had caused a problem. However when I brought the laptop into my office and tried connecting to my PC over the office wireless connection there was no problem.

I then tried this great little tool RD Enable XP that allows you to set up remote desktop access remotely as long as you have access to the computer and the necessary admin privileges. It requires that you have PSExec installed which comes with the PSTools admin suite and allows you to carry out tasks on computers remotely such as monitoring and managing processes.

The program checks that you can access the remote PC, that the Terminal Services options are enabled correctly in the registry and that you're not being blocked by a firewall.

I had already checked that the fDenyTSConnections registry option was set correctly so when the application hung whilst trying to set firewall exceptions I thought that there was a problem with my router and firewall.

I then tried changing the port number that Terminal Service connections are carried out with from 3389 to 3390. This is another registry setting that needs to be changed on the remote computer and then after a reboot you just append the port number after the computer name or IP address when connecting e.g strmycomputer:3390.

This didn't work so I was pretty annoyed as Virgin media hadn't been much help so I was about to give up until I came across a message thread related to the same problem.

One of the suggestions was to change the Advanced Network Error Search option which is something Virgin offers it's users and is described as follows:

Our advanced network error search helps you find the website you're looking for quickly.

We all make mistakes when we type in website addresses. Perhaps we miss a few letters, or the website doesn't exist any longer. If an address you enter doesn't locate a site, this handy feature will convert the incorrect address into a web search, so instead of an error message you will get a list of our closest matches, plus some additional related links.

This option is linked to your broadband connection which explains why the problem was related to the local connection and not the PC or remote network.

Low and behold when I disabled this option I could once again access my work PC over Remote Desktop again!

I have no idea why this option was suddenly enabled as I have never come across or even heard of it before tonight so I can only imagine Virgin decided to update their settings without asking their customers first.

It also seems to be pre-selected on newly bought laptops as I found out again tonight! Lucky I wrote this blog article otherwise I would have had to hunt down the original again!

I have no idea why this Virgin config option affects remote desktop connections but it obviously can cause a total block on this type of functionality.

If you too have similar problems related to Remote Desktop connections and are also a Virgin Media customer then save yourself a whole lot of time and go to this page first and check your settings: https://my.virginmedia.com/advancederrorsearch/settings