From a command shell (cmd) issue the command:
netstat -a | find “:3389” | find “ESTABLISHED”
This will a result in a list of all remote IP-addresses connected using RDP to the server.
If the server is using a non-standard port for RDP, replace 3389 with the non-standard port.
After connecting by remote desktop to a machine, the initial welcome screen is displayed then the screen goes black.
Press CTRL-ALT-END and wait (it might take a while). When the Cancel button is visible, hit Cancel. Now the screen goes back to normal.
Suddenly I couldn’t connect to my Windows 7 machine by RDP using Remmina on Ubuntu 12.04. It had worked before and suddenly stopped working. The error message displayed was ‘Unable to connect to RDP server’. Other RDP connections worked fine.
For some reason the problem was solved by editing the file ~/.freerdp/known_hosts and deleting the line with the server having the problem. When connecting again I was asked to accept the certificate and now the RDP connection worked again.
When you connect to a Windows XP with remote desktop (RDP), you automatically get connected to the console, i.e. the same screen/session that a local user is logged into.
To start the remote desktop in console mode you click on the Windows Start button and type in the Run or Search field:
For Windows XP:
mstsc /console
For Windows Vista / 7:
mstsc /admin
And then press enter or click Run.