Can’t logoff user

Environment: Server 2008 Remote Desktop Services

Issue: User reports that they can’t login their account on Remote Desktop Services. They’re greated by Loading Notification Message which spins on forever.

Symptom: Disconnect removes user from session. But when logoff is tried nothing happens. Manually killing the only two processes associated with account doesn’t help (taskmgr, rdclip).

Solution:

1. Check the session ID from Terminal Services Manager for the troubleaccount.
2. Run Sysinternals Process Explorer (from http://live.sysinternals.com/procexp.exe)
3. Add the Session ID to columns
4. Kill the winlogon.exe that have the same Session ID as the troubled account.

Solved.

References:

https://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?threadID=258251&tstart=105&start=15

Remote Desktop Services in 2012

Problem:
In a customer environment they wanted to install RDS and DC on the same server. A nice cheap solution, which have worked perfectly fine in the past. Not so anymore. In Server 2012, RDS requires by default that

1. A domain controller is present, aka server is member of a domain
2. the RDS role cannot be installed on the DC

Which means, you need at least two servers for a working installation?
Well no, there is apparently a official workaround from microsoft. It was not easy to find so im posting it here for future reference or until I’ve had time to try it out.
Edit:  A colleague actually tried this out on several machines and it seemed to work as expected.
Solution:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2833839/en-us?sd=rss - Guidelines for installing the Remote Desktop Session Host role service on a computer running Windows Server 2012 without the Remote Desktop Connection Broker role service
References:
http://www.wackytechtips.com/installing-and-configuring-remote-desktop-services-rds-on-windows-server-2012/
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2013/07/09/what-s-new-in-remote-desktop-services-for-windows-server-2012-r2.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831447.aspx - specs about rds 2012.
http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh831568.aspx - deprecated
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2013/03/14/what-s-new-in-windows-server-2012-remote-desktop-gateway.aspx - changes
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2012/10/30/windows-8-windows-server-2012-remote-desktop-management-server.aspx - new ways of managing rds
http://www.urtech.ca/2013/02/solved-1-hour-to-install-and-configure-a-single-server-remote-desktop-services-on-server-2012/
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/cbffb2d4-ff9d-49ee-a9ce-a60db2262422/managing-server-2012-rds-in-a-workgroup- -
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2833839/en-us?sd=rss&spid=16526&wa=wsignin1.0 – ms article regarding standalone rds
http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.nl/

Unable to load client print control

Firstly! No happy ending to this story.
Issue:
Error is shown when users use print control in an external hosted application.

Still works to print, when first pushing abort and then running anyways.
Symptoms:
Hosted application use a Microsoft SQL Server Report Viewer Control.
Users connect from Remote Desktop Server running Server 2008 R2 using Internet Explorer 9.
UAC is disabled, due to other 3^rd party application that requires this.

Addin is loaded in Internet Explorer. Probable cause is rights issue.
Only reason it works anyways is because I logged in as administrator and ran the installation above. Problem is that this control tries to download every time user access the site, just in case there is a new version.
Actions:
Registered rsclientprint.dll manually on adminlogin, and in user environment. No effect.
Removed files from Windows\Downloaded Program Files > Went back to not working at all. Copied back to allow users to print despite error message.
Registered rsclientprintx64.dll > No effect. Browser is probably running in x32 mode so the right components should be installing.
Tried to run website from Iexplore in 64bits mode > Site didn’t even work.
Set up GPO to allow server-users to autoinstall activex components > No effect.
Tried adding the user to Power Users to do the install > No effect.
Resolution: to be added….
Notes:
Most of information on Internet points to the server hosting the webapplication needing to install Microsoft Report Viewer SP1 - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bb196d5d-76c2-4a0e-9458-267d22b6aac6&DisplayLang=en and Report Viewer Redistributable 2008 Service Pack 1 GDIPLUS.DLL Security Update
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6aaa74bd-a46e-4478-b4e1-2063d18d2d42&displaylang=en
But since I don’t have control of the server and the company hosting the application isn’t very forthcoming I wanna solve on the clientside. This doesn’t seem to work though. So severals hours of trying to solve it has led me to take a timeout and await the company helpdesk. Annoying.

Update 1.
After calling to the supplier with my grief it turned out that they indeed had recently updated their plattform and were experiencing some issues... Well at least I could turn over my hours of research into the problem to them, hoping this would speed up their own troubleshooting.
Another great link I found : http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/is/sqlreportingservices/thread/4af03654-31b1-44b3-8514-20a3c25bfd7c
This points toward the issue only happening in environements were the user isn't administrator.

RDS–Disable Office update settings

When first time users start their Office it’s nice to not have to specify how you want updates to be installed.

Especially on a Remote Desktop Server, where the user don’t have the permissions for it anyways.

To get rid of it

1. Download Office 2010 Administrative Templates

2. Create new GPO>Add Template for Office 2010

3. In Microsoft Office 2010 > Privacy > Trust Center > Enable (Disable Opt-in Wizard on first run)

4. Apply GPO to the user OU.

References:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=18968

IE9 + Outlook 2003 = preview.js

Problem started when installing IE9 on a Remote Desktop Server running Server 2008 with Outlook 2003 installed. 2003 you say? Yes it’s a customer licens and they don’t want to upgrade.

Symptoms: Script error displayed when trying to print an email

Solution 1:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Printing
Create a DWORD and name it "Force RTF Printing" (without the ") and give it the value 1 (hex).

This has to be done for all users, which isn’t optimal.

Solution 2:

Create Fonts catalog in %homedrive%\%homepath%\ In this case h:\Windows\Fonts

This solution seemed easier to automate so went with this.

Rolled out via GPO Preference for this particular RDServer.

Don’t forget checkbox for “Run in logged-on users sec….”.

References:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mrsnrub/archive/2011/11/03/script-error-res-ieframe-dll-preview-js-trying-to-print-from-outlook-2003-in-a-rs-rds-session-with-ie9-installed.aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2647169

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/2003/print-errors-in-outlook-2003-with-ie9-installed/

Remote Desktop Services in Workgroup mode

I had a case where a customer wanted to run RDS on singleserver. The idea was to run DC and TS on the same server to save hostingmoney. A bad practice and not really optimal to run on a virtual host with limited memory. The thought struck me if we could manage without the DC the system might run much smoother.

While googling for information a noticed that it was sparse with info for this scenario on the net. It did however work splendidly.

What you need to do

1. Install Server 2008 R2

2. Install server server role Remote Desktop Session Host and Remote Desktop Licensing

3. Configure Per User Licensing mode

4.  Add these policies to make life easier

Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Windows Components> Remote Desktop Services> Remote Desktop Session Host>Printer Redirection>Specify RD Session Host server fallback printer driver behavior> = default to PCL if not found

Computer Configuration>Windows Components>Remote Desktop Services>Remote Desktop Session Hos>Connections>Sets rules for remote control of Remote Desktop user sessions = enabled, with user permissions

5. Create users from Computer Management> Users and Computers and add these to Remote Desktop Users group.

For a single server environment this method might sometimes be justified, otherwise it’s a DC-environment that is recommended.