Windows 11 22H2: Microsoft investigates RDP issues

[German]Microsoft now seems to be internally investigating problems with remote desktop systems that occurred after various users switched to Windows 11 version 22H2. However, the company has not yet decided to make an official statement. Anyway, another paragraph can be added to the never-ending topic of RDP problems with Windows. However, there is a workaround to solve the problem.

Remote Desktop problems reported

Shortly after the release of Windows 11 version 22H2, users and administrators complained about problems with remote desktop connections and shared their experiences on various online platforms. After installing the feature update to Windows 11 22H2, remote desktop clients are unable to connect, the RDP connection randomly drops or freezes unexpectedly. Here on the blog, reader Michael wrote in this German comment on the (German) blog post Windows 11 22H2: Probleme und Upgrade-Stopper:

Installed today and already having problems that forced me to go back.

All my saved remote desktop connections stopped working, I got an error that the login attempt failed. You can enter a new password then it works, but it is not saved, no way to remember.

My VPN connections in DeepL access in the bottom right of the taskbar are gone, click on the icon at the bottom and nothing happens.

The error went away after uninstalling the Windows 11, version 22H2 feature update. Also in the Microsoft Answers forum there is a thread Issues with Remote Desktop on Windows 11 after Update 22H2, where a user describes a problem with Remote Desktop.

All of our Remote Desktop Users using Windows 11 are having problems connecting to Remote Desktop after installing this update. It just hangs at connecting.

The thread for this post now spans several pages with more users commenting on this issue since September 2022. Also on the Microsoft Q&A page there is the post Windows 11 22H2 – Cant connect to a RDS server after update, which is confirmed by several administrators for Windows 11 22H2

One user had picked up the topic on Twitter, linked to the thread above and asked why something like this was not fixed before the release – although users had reported it in the Insider program. The colleagues from Bleeping Computer have linked some more reports about problems with RDP connections here.

Microsoft investigates the case

In the Microsoft Answers forum thread, Microsoft employee Nouri A. jumped in early to identify the issue. In all cases, an RD gateway is probably used, through which the remote desktop connections run. Common is that the constellation runs with all Windows variants, with exceptions of Windows 11 22H2. The background is a bug in the Remote Desktop client (mstsc.exe), which only attempts connections via UDP and not via TCP. On page 3 of the Microsoft Answers forum thread you can find the answer of Microsoft employee Nouri A, who writes the following:

Thanks your very much everyone for the information shared.

we are working on this issue internally, will let you know the outcome.

Until a solution is rolled out by Microsoft, affected individuals can try the workaround described by Jeff Cleath and add in the registry in the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services\Client

add the DWORD value fClientDisableUDP and set it to 1. Setting the entry requires administrator privileges. The entry prevents connection attempts over UDP and forces remote desktop connection over TCP. Seems to help with those affected. German blog reader Martin Wildi also mentioned it in this comment.

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