Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) - Network

Xality said:

Oh hey there, how you doin? I've just registered and hope you guys might be able to help me...

I have Windows7 on this machine and all I am trying to do is set up Remote Desktop to connect to this PC from work.

I am behind a router, my PC is on 192.168.1.3 and have forward the default Remote Desktop port (3389) to that IP.

Now, when I use my WinXP laptop (same network) to test it, I only seem to be able to connect to my Win7 machine sucessfully by using a local ip (192.168.1.3) but if I type the IP address for my router there I just get: "Remote Desktop Disconected-> This computer cant connect to the remote computer..."

I have gone on a website which scans for open ports and 3389 is opened, the router is pointing that port to this machine and yet I cant seem to connect for some reason, have tried switching the firewall off on both machines and same issue.

I do have a proper user/password so its not because of a blank password either.

So I am very confused, the Desktop Connection works from within the LAN, which means there isnt any settings that need modifying on the Win7 machine, the router is forwarding the 3389 port to the machine and I have confirmed the port is opened, have tried disabling firewall on router, setting my machine (.3) as a DMZ server, even adding the :3389 after the IP address from the WinXP laptop and still... no joy....

Any ideas?

When you say that your router is forwarding port 3389 to the machine, you mean the IP of the Win7 PC, right? You did set the Win7 PC to accept RDC automatically, right?

Try it and see, but it sounds like you have some other issues!

Hello All! New to the forum but I felt inclined to share my experience of the windows 7 RDC environment as well as Vista.
Top Marks to the details above, exactly as is written however we came across a cpl of points in our small business network - 5-8 users. We have a router with port forwarding enabled and so each computer operates on a different port (multiple computers behind a router). We have a couple of of switches on our network as well - Our office spans two "condos".

We are all in the process of upgrading to windows 7 and had the following issue with the firewall. After allowing remote desktop on the firwall settings (in and out - public and domain) we could not figure out what else we had to do to enable the remote desktop connection. Two computers upgraded from vista ultimate worked fine and two upgraded from XP could not connect. We figured there was some setting that had been preserved in the upgrade (from Vista) but not the clean install (from XP). Turns out that it is necessary to do the following.

Start (round button!) > Control Panel > Windows Firewall > Advanced Settings (Left hand side of screen) > Inbound Rule (left hand side) > New Rule (Right Hand Side) > Select PORT radio button > TCP radio button and enter the specific port > hit next and voila - remote desktop with port forwarding enabled.

Seems pretty silly looking back however thought I would share this in case other people waste 4 hours on a silly problem!!

Greetings all.. I just joined, and posted a question, but when i went back and looked at MrHawkings comment, everything was cleared up. Thanks Hawkings. :)