Sunday, October 21, 2012

Windows 8 and Juniper RDP VPN unstability


I have been dealing with an interesting issues with Windows 8.  I loaded the beta way back when it was first released.  Once issue that I had issues with was my VPN connectivity at work.  It was very unstable.  I could get 2-5 minutes of work done at a time before it would drop.  I wrote it off as a beta issue and went on my way.  I didn't need to work from home as much as I was, so it was not that big if a deal.

I was a little disappointed when I installed the RTM and the issue continued.  I could deal with it if I was just checking in on servers.  But if I needed to any real work, it was just too much.  It felt like it was dropping more and more often. 

This weekend I actually needed to work on some things and my connection would only last a few seconds.  So it was time to solve the issue. I had enough.  I didn’t have any quick access to any computers that were not running Windows 8 or Server 2012.  I thought it was a good time to finally enable Hyper-V on my desktop.

I enabled the feature and after the reboot, I started installing Windows 7.  As I waited for the install to run, I was reminded at how much faster Windows 8 installed.

The good news is that it worked.  I was able to connect to my VM to use my VPN.  I did find it interesting though.  I would RDP into my VM, to RDP into my work desktop, to RDP into my servers.

If anyone else is having the same issues I am, here is one solution.  I think the issues I am having are more the way our VPN is deployed. We use a Juniper client that has its own rdp client.  I think if our admins had configured things a little different, I could use a different RDP client.  But this works well enough.

22 comments:

  1. Hi Kevin,

    I am having the same issue - and it seems others are too.

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itpronetworking/thread/9fd4d6d5-1adc-494d-a916-0032f3e08789

    http://forums.juniper.net/t5/SSL-VPN/SA2500-7-1r6-gt-Windows-8-RDP-and-Citrix-Proxy/td-p/167596

    Our networks team said they tried the October update from Juniper but it doesnt seem to have made any difference.

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. I have also just upgraded to windows 8, and I am experiencing the same interruptions. I am able to connect and work for a few minutes and then the session freezes.
    I would appreciate any advice on the matter.
    Thanks,
    Dov

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  4. miked8:39 AM

    I have the same issue. Using juniper RDP from win 8 to a win 7 PC. Connections drops and then reconnects. Very annoying...

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  5. Anonymous12:14 AM

    I heard it was a problem with printer drivers. Remote the printer drivers and RDP again.

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  6. It works much better after removing the latest ~10-15 Windows Updates, with the latest one remaining I left as KB 2784160.

    The only now is a slight delay refreshing(10 seconds) after alt-tabbing between the remote desktop window and other windows on the host machine.

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  7. I've found that the Juniper simply doesn't like UDP that is part of RDP 8. Disable it.

    Group Policy:
    Local Computer Policy
    Computer Configuration
    Administrative Templates
    Windows Components
    Remote Desktop Services
    Remote Desktop Connection Client
    Turn Off UDP On Client --> Enabled

    Regedit:
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services\Client
    fClientDisableUDP dword:00000001

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  8. thank you ! I had the same issue and this worked for me...

    Regedit:
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services\Client\
    Create a dword and assign a value of 1 to: tofClientDisableUDP dword:00000001


    Rajesh

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  9. Not all connections are created equal.

    I saw 2 computers fail to maintain a connection, a 3rd one that I have does stay connected.

    One of my coworkers said that he had to lower the bit depth of the connection then his started working. He was only having troubles connecting from Win8 to Win8.

    I ended up taking a low end Windows 7 laptop home from work just for VPN

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  10. More users talking about this same issue here:

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itpronetworking/thread/9fd4d6d5-1adc-494d-a916-0032f3e08789/

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  11. From: http://forums.juniper.net/t5/SSL-VPN/SA2500-7-1r6-gt-Windows-8-RDP-and-Citrix-Proxy/td-p/167596/page/5

    e: SA2500 7.1r6 -> Windows 8 RDP and Citrix Proxy
    Options
    ‎05-07-2013 07:07 PM

    A fix that we have seen work in the lab, and at customer sites with 7.3R5, has been implemented while we continue to work with Microsoft to make sure there are no corner cases being missed

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  12. Well i upgraded our juniper sa4500 to 7.2r9 per Juniper supports recomendation still having issues with solid connections for some clients.

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  13. ThanhNV4:17 AM

    Hi all
    After many days i found a solution for this problem, hope it works for someone (of course this worked for me): Just go to C:\Users\Nguyen\AppData\Roaming\Juniper Networks\Juniper Terminal Services Client\ and set the compatibility for dsTermServ.exe with "Windows 7" and donot forget enable "run this program as an adminsistrator".
    Pls report if this woks, thanks.

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  14. @ThanhNV,

    Thanks. I finally can get Juniper SSL VPN connection working on Win8. The only difference is that I had to set compatibility level to WinXP SP3.

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  15. Update: Today my solution stopped working. I'm getting the connection dropping issue again.

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  16. Anonymous4:45 PM

    Wrked like a charm.

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  17. Disabling UDP didn't help for me, but something that seems to have helped a lot is that I changed my remote desktop connection in Juniper to use 16-bit color instead of 32-bit. I haven't noticed the freeze since I changed it and it works much faster overall.

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  18. Anonymous12:36 AM

    We followed a thread on the Juniper Site that someone identified as being related to a wireless printer that was turned off. Turn the printer on and reconnect and all worked fine. Turned the wireless printer back off again and RDP problems. Uninstalled the printer drivers completely reboot and all is OK. There is a patch to the Juniper SSL 7.4 r4.4 I believe which resolves the issues

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  19. Anonymous7:33 PM

    I had a similar intermittent RDP freeze up issue and the hotfix associated with KB2897602 appears to have fixed it for me.

    Link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2897602

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  20. Anonymous4:37 PM

    I have been fighting this for a couple of months and this fixed it for me
    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2897602

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  21. Anonymous4:41 PM

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2897602
    Fixed it for me.

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  22. Anonymous9:43 PM

    SUB: dsTermServ.exe has exited unedpectedly.

    After rummaging thru useless comments by supposed experts, I found out the solution - this is applicable for both Win7 (I tried it on Win7) and my friend tells me the same patch is in Win8. But I have used IE (both 10 AND 11).

    Here is what I did to fix it:

    Went to the Control Panel and open “Programs and features”.
    On the left side top, there is “View Installed updates” – clicked it open. This will give a laundry list of updates to my system. Searched for the patch KB2830477 and double clicked it. The system asked if I wanted to uninstall it – clicked yes.

    Then click Start button, slected “All Programs” to locate the folder “Juniper Networks”. In there, clicked the option to Uninstall.

    Booted the system and then useed Internet Explorer to access the work PC. Juniper created the client on its own afresh. It worked like charm for me.

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