Over the summer we build a Remote Desktop Gateway Cluster to provide remote access to workstations for some of our clients.
Users intended for remote access are added to the respective remote desktop PC's user group 'Remote Desktop Users', using the lusrmgr.msc MMC snap-in. If I try and login from a non-Windows client, thereby receiving the above error, the Security Log on the RDP Server shows a failed Logon Event, ID 4625. It is possible that the issue you're experiencing is caused by misconfigured settings with Remote Desktop. Since your Windows question is more complex than what is typically answered in the Microsoft Answers forums. It is better suited for the IT Pro audience on TechNet. Please post your question in the TechNet Windows 10 forum. In the “Allowed apps and features” column, find items named “Remote Assistance”, “Remote Desktop”, and “Remote Desktop (WebSocket)”. Make sure both the “Private” and “Public” boxes are checked next to each one.
Initial testing worked great for Mac OS, Windows and Linux users. For Mac OS we had clients download the official Microsoft RDP App from the App Store.
- Remote Desktop can't connect to the remote computer ' for one of these reasons: 1) Your user account is not listed in the RD Gateway's permission list 2) You might have specified the remote computer in NetBIOS format (for example, computer1), but the RD Gateway is expecting an FQDN or IP address format (for example, computer1.fabrikam.com.
- Download Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac - Connect to Windows-based PCs to access Windows-based files, applications, devices, and networks from your Mac. Fixed the root cause of a 0x207.
Right before go-live day we updated our RDP template we provide to clients and that’s when things started going wrong for only Mac users…. and only some Mac users.
Clients using Mac OS 10.15.x and Microsoft RDP 1.14.x were greeted with this error message:
Unable to connect
We couldn’t connect to the Remote PC. This might be due to an expired password. If this keeps happening, contact your network administrator for assistance.
Error code: 0x207
I originally came cross this Technet thread when researching the issue: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e0f8f58f-58c9-49fc-9d48-f6bfde830f17/rdweb-authentication-error-0x607?forum=winserverTS
Turns out that didn’t apply to us. The registry entries it mentioned did not exist on our servers.
We found that rolling back the Microsoft RDP Client to 1.13.8 (the latest 1.13.x build) would solve the problem.
We also found that the latest Microsoft RDP Client, 1.14.0, worked fine on Mac OS 10.14.1 but the same was not true for Mac OS 10.15.6.
On a whim one of our Techs still had a copy of our original RDP template we used for initial testing where everything worked and found that it still worked on Mac OS 10.15.6 with Microsoft RDP 1.14.0.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Error Code 0x207
We cracked open the RDP file (it’s just text) to find what the difference was:
We had added the following line:
username:s:OURDOMAIN
Imovie for mac 10.5.8 download. In an attempt to make it easier for clients to connect by auto-populating our domain name into the shortcut.
When we removed this line from our template the problem went away.
TLDR: Modify your power plan to ensure your VM isn’t going to sleep!
I had recently deployed a new Windows 10 based VM that would serve as an RDP jump box to access lab resources. Initially RDP worked fine, but I noticed that after a while I couldn’t connect any more. The only way to rouse it from this state was to open a direct console window from the vSphere Client, or to reboot the VM.
The exact error message from the Remote Desktop for Mac window is:
“We couldn’t connect to the remote PC. Make sure the PC is turned on and connected to the network, and that remote access is enabled.
Subs factory for mac. Error code: 0x204”
In addition to the 0x204 error, I also saw “Error code: 0x4” numerous times as well.
The two error codes I kept getting (0x204 and 0x4) were not helpful and just led me on a wild goose chase. These codes were only reported on the Mac RDP client and Windows was more generic:
Clearly the message “Make sure the PC is turned on” garnered no attention from a seasoned IT professional like me, but in the end turned out to be relevant. The issue was that the Windows 10 VM was going to sleep.
I only noticed this when I saw a blacked-out screen in the console preview and the lack of a hostname or IP address listed. This tells me that VMware tools hasn’t checked in for a period of time.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Error Code 0x204
I’m not sure if an incoming RDP connection attempt would wake a physical machine in this state, but sleep isn’t very beneficial to a VM. I simply modified the power settings to prevent sleep and hibernation and the issue hasn’t happened again.
Windows Server varieties don’t behave this way, but because Windows 10 is primarily intended for bare-metal laptop and desktop use cases, power saving features are enabled by default.
This is a pretty basic problem, but I thought I’d do a post just in case it helps someone else who overlooked the obvious like I did and instead tried chasing up hexadecimal error codes 🙂