Solved - Remote Desktop Connection Credentials Failed

bkl

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I wanted to pass along another weird one that I've solved in case it may help someone else. I spent about three hours on this all total and never found anything relevent through Google searches. One machine is running Windows 7 Pro and the other is a new one running Windows 8 Pro

I was simply trying to use Remote Desktop Connection on the Win7 Pro machine to log into the new Win8 Pro machine. I use RDC from that win7 Pro box all the time to log into other Win7 Pro machines and never had a problem. But now when trying to log into the Windows 8 Pro box I was getting a message about "credentials" failing. I had "allow connections to this computer" checked, of course, on the Remote tab in the System control panel on the Windows 8 box. I also checked the windows Firewall on the Win8 box to make sure that remote desktop was checked, which it was.

The solution turned out to be that Microsoft has completely changed the format of the RDC login user name on the (remote) Windows 8 Pro machine. When I set up the Win8 box I allowed it to create the "Microsoft Account" it asks for in the setup screen with an email address I already have, like 123456@mydomain.com. With Windows 7 when logging into RDC you would simply use the user name on the remote box for the "User Name" field, then enter the remote box password. Well now if the remote Windows 8 box is setup with a Microsoft account, the format for the RDC user name is this:

MicrosoftAccount\123456@mydomain.com

That is right, you actually type in the words "MicrosoftAccount", put the slash in, and then type in whatever email address you used to set up the microsoft account when setting up Windows 8. Apparently this is the format for logging into corporate domains, and now the words "MicrosoftAccount" are taking the place of a domain when logging in. The username on the remote box is no longer used at all for the RDC login, but it will still ask for the password.

Aaarrrggghhh! 3 hours wasted on that. Thanks, Microsoft. :think:

<rant ON> Since Windows 8 seems to be a freak-out knee jerk response to Google Android on cell phones becoming popular, this "microsoft account" thing is apparently their knee-jerk response to the Google email account used with Android. Apparently in Microsoft's view of the world this RDC change was some clever way to make use of that. But in reality it is just going to confuse the heck out of desktop users who have real work they need to get done and suddenly can't do remote logins anymore to the new Win8 boxes. MS needs to learn to keep their OS stable, stable, stable! This stuff is being used for businesses. <rant OFF>

I've only been using Windows 8 for about 4 days now, but the good news is that once past the insane start menu/screen thing, the "desktop" still looks and works just like the Windows 7 desktop (minus the start button which has now become the insane start screen). MS has fixed a few things that should have been fixed in Win7, which is good. One is that there is no longer separate 32 bit and 64 bit versions of IE. IE now does both and you tell it which to use under what circumstances in the "trusted site" options area.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro x64
Great tip! :D

You don't absolutely need to use a Microsoft account with Windows 8: you can set up a local user account just like you do in Windows 7. There are advantages to the Microsoft account but also drawbacks. I've used both and I don't have a real preference.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 x64
I was having similar issues remote accessing PC's on my work server. I fixed it by putting the domain name after user name eg:- user@mydomain
I got this fix from another user so no credit to me. Has taken days to find this fix.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Built
    CPU
    AMD
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte
    Antivirus
    AVG
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