When connected to VPN, MS TSC cannot resolve names yet ping/nslookup/telnet can?
Client PC is a Windows 7 Professional laptop, the staff member is trying to connect to their work computer (Windows 7 Enterprise) through Remote Desktop and the VPN server. When they try, Remote Desktop reports back that it cannot find the machine. If we enter the IP address, it works perfectly, so we know the ports for RDP are open and not a problem. Open up a command prompt, and we can resolve the name via nslookup, we can ping the system by name, and we can telnet to the system on port 3389 by name. So all tools that operate through the command prompt seem to have no problems resolving the name of this persons work computer, yet remote desktop still reports back that it can't find it. Using the unqualified name and the fully qualified name makes no difference. The source computer is Windows 7 Professional, not part of the domain. The VPN server is Windows 2003 Server. The DNS servers are Windows 2008 R2 Server. The destination computer is Windows 7 Enterprise, part of the domain.
August 16th, 2012 1:56am

Hi, Thank you for your post. It looks weird. Could you bring the staff laptop to your intranet to test RDP? Moreover, please provide the RDP error message and related event log. Regards, Rick TanRick Tan TechNet Community Support
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August 17th, 2012 5:11am

On Win 7 machine which is not part of the domain from which you are trying remote desktop connection, add a local host entry for destination machine.I do not represent the organisation I work for, all the opinions expressed here are my own. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights. - .... .- -. -.- ... --..-- ... .- -. - --- ... ....
August 17th, 2012 5:24am

Ok, managed to track down a solution to it, though the cause of the problem still hasn't quite been defined. There ended up being two problems here. The first was resolved by opening a command prompt and running "netsh int ipv4 reset" and "netsh winsock reset". This allowed the persons personal computer to connect to resources inside our corporate network once connected to the VPN by name as 95% of other computers are able to. The second problem that became apparent only after this point, was that he still couldn't connect to his work desktop PC via RDP. Clearing up the RDP caches (C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Cache\ and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server client\Default\ ) as well as recreating his desktop.rdp file returned access to that. Thankyou everyone for the tips and suggestions, it was greatly appreciated.
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August 19th, 2012 6:20pm

Double check with the IT manager. This is a DNS problem, since you can access it using an IP address without a problem. When you connect to the VPN server you may be using another DNS server altogether and so the dns name of the server may change from a public to private name after you connect to VPN. Also, after VPN connection, your default gateway may also change. You can check these settings in the client machine's VPN adapter advanced TCP/IP properties where there may or may not be a checkmark under "use default gateway on remote network'. This option affects the route and DNS. Miguel Fra | Falcon IT Services, Miami, FL www.falconitservices.com | www.falconits.com | Blog
August 19th, 2012 8:57pm

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