Remote desktop fail

I have used remote desktop off and on for years because it is superior to any other type of remote access that I have tried. I have good understanding everything one needs to do in order to use remote desktop.
1. First, you need to enable remote access by going to controlpanel/system/remote and click the radio button to enable remote access (either with or without NLA; I generally have never been able to get it to work with NLA required, but more on that later).
2. In the Windows firewall, an inbound rule needs to be created for the port you are using. If you're using the default port (3389), then this is not necessary, but since I have multiple machines on my home network, I specify a different port number and create a new inbound rule for it.
3. Open the registry for the machine in question and change the default remote desktop port to whatever you set up in 2. above. Reboot the computer for this to take effect.
4. Go to my WAN router and set up port forwarding for the port specified above.

At this point, RDP should be ready to go, and it has always worked in the past, and it was working the first time I set it up a few days ago. However, I tried to change the remote access to require NLA, and ever since I did that RDP has stopped working even though I changed the remote access back to not require NLA.

What happens now when I try to remote to this machine is that I get no connection. I also tried check this port externally to see if it was cleared, and it was not. I don't understand how this could be occurring except in the router, but I have not changed anything with the router except the set up the port forwarding. I can connect to this machine within the home network, so I know the problem is not there.

That's one problem. The next problem is that I have a new Windows 10 machine, so I decided to see if I could remote to it. I did all the same steps as above, AND on external check, the port is clear, AND I can connect. The problem is it will not recognize my password. So what's the trick here, and why does port forwarding work for the Win 10 machine, but not for the Win 7 machine (that has worked for years prior to this)?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Are you port forwarding to a fixed IP or it won't work

samuria said:

Are you port forwarding to a fixed IP or it won't work

Sorry, forgot to mention that I assign a fixed network address to all my home network machines. My outside IP is dynamic, but I always check to make sure I have current version.