Thomas M. Turner's Tech Ramblings
IT blogging from the corn, soybean, & hog state... oink. Atom formatted XML site feed
Things got insanely busy for me at work in August and into early September, so it's been over a month since I last posted about Service Pack 2, for Windows XP, breaking the use of a Remote Desktop Client to connect and control one of my office workstations. Off and on, I spent many hours, over the next couple of weeks, un-installing SP2, removing apps, checking settings, re-installing SP2, having the same problem, reverting back to the pre-SP2 "restore point"... repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse... you get the idea.
I'm not alone, though, as this has come up on the Newsgroups and I've received a few e-mails from people saying they have the same problem. It is definitely rare, to be sure, even amongst all the computers I support, this one workstation was the only one to have the problem (well, read through to the end, as this isn't completely true.)
The bottom line is, I ruled out Windows Firewall, early on, despite (understandably) that being the most obvious question other tech people kept asking about. I also ruled out the ATI video driver and I had un-installed just about every app, other than MS Office. I got to the point where I just needed to use the computer and so I documented everything, sent it all in to the free Windows XP SP2 support and then (not realizing they'd get back to me within 6 hours) I wiped it and installed a fresh copy of XP+SP2. Naturally, a clean copy of XP+SP2 had no Remote Desktop problem.
The response from Microsoft tech support was to allow me to download the KB321624 hotfix. In the newsgroups, I see a couple of other responses people have received, though, so I'm not sure this was just a "try this and let us know" guess or what. Seeing as I had already wiped my problematic computer, I couldn't test this hotfix.
However, as I mentioned in my previous post, this same problem happened to me in on an older system of mine, after I had put on SP2 Release Candidate 2. My next test, then, is to install the real SP2 on this older system and see if it breaks Remote Desktop access, as well, and if so (as I fully expect) whether or not this (pre-SP2) hotfix solves the problem or not. Even if it does, though, I'd still personally rather just wipe the machine and put a new XP install on.
To be continued...
I'm not alone, though, as this has come up on the Newsgroups and I've received a few e-mails from people saying they have the same problem. It is definitely rare, to be sure, even amongst all the computers I support, this one workstation was the only one to have the problem (well, read through to the end, as this isn't completely true.)
The bottom line is, I ruled out Windows Firewall, early on, despite (understandably) that being the most obvious question other tech people kept asking about. I also ruled out the ATI video driver and I had un-installed just about every app, other than MS Office. I got to the point where I just needed to use the computer and so I documented everything, sent it all in to the free Windows XP SP2 support and then (not realizing they'd get back to me within 6 hours) I wiped it and installed a fresh copy of XP+SP2. Naturally, a clean copy of XP+SP2 had no Remote Desktop problem.
The response from Microsoft tech support was to allow me to download the KB321624 hotfix. In the newsgroups, I see a couple of other responses people have received, though, so I'm not sure this was just a "try this and let us know" guess or what. Seeing as I had already wiped my problematic computer, I couldn't test this hotfix.
However, as I mentioned in my previous post, this same problem happened to me in on an older system of mine, after I had put on SP2 Release Candidate 2. My next test, then, is to install the real SP2 on this older system and see if it breaks Remote Desktop access, as well, and if so (as I fully expect) whether or not this (pre-SP2) hotfix solves the problem or not. Even if it does, though, I'd still personally rather just wipe the machine and put a new XP install on.
To be continued...
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