After I joined
a Windows 2008 R2 SP1 machine to the domain and rebooted, the remote desktop services
would connect, display the applying group policy setting and then terminate the
session. It would throw an error when
you try to connect again as if the remote desktop services were not enabled.
I logged into
the server using iLO and noticed that the Remote
Desktop Services was in a stopped state. Check the system log and found the
error 7031 with a description “The Remote Desktop Services service terminated
unexpectedly. It has done this 2
time(s). The following corrective action
will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service.”
Started the
service and tried logging in again and issue repeated. However I was able to
log in as a local administrator after the service was started. It was only
crashing when the login was attempted using a domain account.
Spent some
time troubleshooting and finally hit on KB 2667402 which explained the reason for this behavior
to be a security update which places a wrong version of the Rdpcorekmts.dll
file. The explanation is as below.
"After you
install security update 2667402 on a computer that is running Windows 7 or
Windows Server 2008 R2, and then you install Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7
or Windows Server 2008 R2, the binary version of Rdpcorekmts.dll is
6.1.7600.16952 and not 6.1.7601.17767. In this scenario, you may be unable to
create a remote desktop session to control the Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008
R2-based computer. "
Uninstalled the KB 2667402 and rebooted and the ghost
vanished and it let me connect on remote desktop. Was tempted to reinstall the
KB and see the result, but didn’t. As per the article reinstalling the KB should
resolve the issue.
