Blue squares and bars when connected with remote desktop

This is a repost of a post from an old blog, made on February 18, 2013, that used to be on:

http://adminramble.com/blue-squares-bars-connected-remote-desktop/

Original post:

Sometimes when you connect to the remote machine using a remote desktop connection you might get blue or black bars, stripes, squares or boxes on the white spaces of the screen of the remote machine. This issue is more often on thin client then other machines.

 

This issue can be resolved by disabling bitmap caching on the RDP client machine.

 

Bitmap caching is by default enabled for all remote desktop connections and it is used for enhancing the user experience on slow links by storing the often used images locally on the client machine.

Remote Desktop Licensing Error

This is a repost of a post from an old blog, made on February 29, 2012, that used to be on:

http://adminramble.com/remote-desktop-licensing-error/

Original post:

Today I got a call from client that he can’t connect to his Terminal Server from his Windows XP client.

He would get following error:

The remote computer disconnected the session because of an error in the licensing protocol. Please try connecting to the remote computer again or contact your server administrator.

Since I was sure the licensing was in order I searched for another possible problems.

The cause of the problem was in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSLicensing.

So here is one of possible solutions if you are getting this error when trying to connect to Terminal Server (Be sure to backup your registry before you do this or export the MSLicensing keys, in case this isn’t the cause of your problems):

  1. Open registry editor (Start > Run > regedit)
  2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ and find MSLicensing folder
  3. Right click on it and select delete
  4. Start Remote Desktop Client (Start>Run>mstsc) as local administrator to rebuild the deleted keys

Iif you are getting some other type of licensing error or if this doesn’t work for you try looking to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc756826%28v=ws.10%29.aspx for some other possible solutions.

How to reset NTFS permissions on drives or folders

This is a repost of a post from an old blog, made on November 22, 2012, that used to be on:

http://beginner.adminramble.com/reset-ntfs-permissions-drives-folders/

Original post:

Friend of mine had problems with the permissions on the external hard drive, he was constantly getting the Consent UI asking him for Administrator access because of the file permissions on the drive.

Here is how you can reset the NTFS permissions on hard drive or a folder to a default Windows permissions.

  • Click the Start button and in the Search bar type cmd
  • Right click the cmd.exe you get as the result and click on Run as administrator
  • In command prompt go to a drive or a folder you want to reset NTFS permissions using something like:
    cd /d e:\foldername
  • Reset NTFS with:
    icacls * /T /Q /C 
    /RESET
  • You should be able to work with files now without the Consent UI popping out all the time.