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David Overton's Blog » Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc) always has the wrong domain name, IP address or always prompting me about security - here are the fixes
Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc) always has the wrong domain name, IP address or always prompting me about security - here are the fixes

One of my UK SBSC partners asked me how to do a couple things in Remote Desktop using the new Vista RDP v6 client as they were bugging the hell out of him and others (I asked him how Vista was going).  Since he admins a number of SBS boxes, these were his top (valid) gripes:

  1. Stop putting in IP addresses for the domain name
  2. Stop the pre-prompt for credentials when TSing to another system
  3. Stop the statement about security every time I try to remote admin into things

The good news is that much of this has been documented else where.

Stop putting in IP addresses for the domain name

Problem is that you fill in a screen like this and get a prompt as below.  Notice it has the domain name as the IP address?  The quick answer is to type the username as <domain>\<username> - eg abusiness\administrator.  This will change the domain name.

Stop the pre-prompt for credentials when TSing to another system

Now the pre-prompting for credentials is the process we have just seen above.  This is required in domains where Network Level Authentication will stop the TS connection without the appropriate credentials before the connection is made.  Details of this can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/ts/archive/2007/01/22/vista-remote-desktop-connection-authentication-faq.aspx#_When_to_use

Stop the statement about security every time I try to remote admin into things

This is again due to increased security levels.  It can be solved by either editing your RDP file (the default.rdp file is in your documents folder - it is a text file) or by going tothe advanced tab and tellit it to always connect.  This information can be found at both http://weblogs.asp.net/owscott/archive/2006/11/10/Vista_2700_s-Remote-Desktop-Prompt.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/ts/archive/2007/01/22/vista-remote-desktop-connection-authentication-faq.aspx#_How_to_eliminate

 

ttfn

David

 

Posted Mon, Mar 12 2007 3:11 PM by David Overton
Filed under: , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Lee Evans wrote re: Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc) always has the wrong domain name, IP address or always prompting me about security - here are the fixes
on Mon, Mar 12 2007 3:41 PM

A better solution with regards to the final point is to actually install a server certificate to the remote terminal server. This increases security slightly as it enables verification of the authenticity of the remote host. Most SBS boxes will already have one or more SSL certificates generated by the CEICW - just apply one of these to the Terminal Server and connect using the same FQDN as in the certificate's common name [probably publishing.yourdomain.com or something]

Steve Wright wrote re: Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc) always has the wrong domain name, IP address or always prompting me about security - here are the fixes
on Mon, Mar 12 2007 4:10 PM

Hi Dave,

Just a thought but he could use Remote Desktops which is part of the free adminpak.msi download. That way he can administer all his SBS boxes from the one place with the added advantage of being able to connect to that all important console session as well.

Cheers

Steve Wright

BMS Digital Solutions Ltd

scott mckenzie wrote re: Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc) always has the wrong domain name, IP address or always prompting me about security - here are the fixes
on Mon, Oct 22 2007 1:13 PM

Hi Dave,

thanks for this; googled it and you came up!  cheers, scott

Tim Burris wrote re: Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc) always has the wrong domain name, IP address or always prompting me about security - here are the fixes
on Sat, Dec 15 2007 3:14 AM

Re: issue #1: How can this behavior be stopped when the remote machine is not on a domain?

What I see is:

Attempt 1: I manually enter the username

Attempt 2: IP\username is automatically filled in and works to authenticate

Attempt 3: username@IP is automatically filled in and does not work to authenticate

Lewis wrote re: Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc) always has the wrong domain name, IP address or always prompting me about security - here are the fixes
on Wed, Jan 16 2008 5:50 PM

Re: issue #1: How can this behavior be stopped when the remote machine is not on a domain?

What I see is:

Attempt 1: I manually enter the username

Attempt 2: IP\username is automatically filled in and works to authenticate

Attempt 3: username@IP is automatically filled in and does not work to authenticate

xyleneuk wrote re: Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc) always has the wrong domain name, IP address or always prompting me about security - here are the fixes
on Wed, Sep 23 2009 9:43 PM

most useful many thanks for the information

much appreciated. found you via google.

Soren Werk wrote re: Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc) always has the wrong domain name, IP address or always prompting me about security - here are the fixes
on Wed, Nov 11 2009 11:13 AM

Thanks!

Kenty wrote re: Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc) always has the wrong domain name, IP address or always prompting me about security - here are the fixes
on Sat, Mar 6 2010 6:08 AM

Thank you! u have no idea how helpful this article was to me! I couldn't log on to my server because the domain was not right.

Now it works perfectly. Thankyou again!

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