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I have the following situation : a Dell windows server 2008 R2 computer, with remote desktop services installed. I have installed a java application making use of a PostgreSql database, and made this application available for clients using RDP. Clients are standard Win XP pc's and Psion Neo handheld devices running Windows CE 5 Pro.

The application works fine for clients on standard XP pc's connected directly via cat 5E Ethernet cable to a Dell Powerconnect 2816 switch. The Psion Neo clients connect wireless to the network via Motorola AP6532 access points. These access points are connected via a POE adapter to the same switch as the XP pc's. The Psion devices can connect without any problem and very quickly to the server and to the application using RDP. So far, so good.

When the Psion devices move around in the warehouse, and they roam from one access point to the other, the RDP session on the client freezes for approx 1 minute, and then it automatically resumes the session. This freezing is very annoying for the users. Can anyone help in solving this issue?

Update (August 9) : After re-installing the access points we have a working situation, but only when connecting to the RDP host : * via a Win Xp SP3 laptop * via a Symbol MC9190 Win CE 6 mobile device When roaming we notice a small hick-up less then 1 second, what is very acceptable. With the Psion NEO it's still not working, when roaming the screen freezes from 2 to 30 seconds. The RDP client on the win xp sp3 laptop and the symbol mc9190 is version 6.0. The RDP client on the neo is version 5.2. I have changed the security layer on the RDP host to RDP security layer (based on forums on the internet), because older RDP clients seem to have issues with the RDP 7.1 protocol on the Win server 2088 R2. Psion adviced us to do some network logging activity on the different devices. We made this logging via wireshark, and based on this the conclusion of Psion is that the server fails in handling tcp-requests. Can anyone give me a second opinion by analysing the wireshark loggings. Thanks in advance. Regards Patrick

Patrick D'Haese
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    So the problem is, when the users switch from one network to another, they experince some network drop out? I do not know how you could solve this. I guess if you used Citrix it would mask the freeze slightly but this is of no real benefit. – boburob Aug 18 '12 at 12:36
  • in fact they stay on the same (sub)network, citrix is not available on the Psion clients – Patrick D'Haese Aug 18 '12 at 12:40
  • @PatrickD'Haese: to clarify boburob's question, if the Psion devices are on wirelss and NOT roaming, does it work flawlessly? – Greg Askew Aug 18 '12 at 12:47
  • yes they are, no issues at all, except when the devices "goes to sleep" after x-time of inactivity, then it takes again approx 1 minute before the connection is re-established. – Patrick D'Haese Aug 18 '12 at 12:49
  • Are the Psion IP addresses assigned via DHCP? – Greg Askew Aug 18 '12 at 13:05
  • in the beginning they received an IP address via DHCP, but now we gave them a static IP address. This changed nothing. – Patrick D'Haese Aug 18 '12 at 13:07
  • @PatrickD'Haese: you may want to perform a network packet capture on the server. I would try to determine if the delay were before the RDP session reconnect was attempted, or if the delay is occurring during the RDP session reconnect, and how much network activity occurs during the reconnect. Are there any TSclient devices mapped, such as printers? – Greg Askew Aug 18 '12 at 13:16
  • The local RDP users are configured to connect to client drives and printers at logon, and to default to main client printer. But at the client side none of these were defined. I'm not very familiar with network packet capture software, and how to analyse. Where can I find some information about this. – Patrick D'Haese Aug 18 '12 at 13:25
  • You can download NetMon 3.4 here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4865 – Greg Askew Aug 18 '12 at 13:42

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Roaming only works if something is actively managing the roaming. Do you have a wireless controller? This line of motorola ap's supports controllerless roaming, but you have to configure one of them as a master. Have you configured one of the ap's to manage roaming?

longneck
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  • a wireless controller is not used, because we only needed 2 access points there was no need for such a controller. The configuration of the access points is done by the company who sold the access points. I need to ask them how they configured the access points. They do told me that everything works fine when they use their Windows 7 laptop as RDP host, they are convinced it should be an issue with the windows 2008 server. – Patrick D'Haese Aug 18 '12 at 12:44
  • Please be clearer about the scenarios. Are you saying that using a windows 7 laptop as the server with the windows ce clients works fine when roaming? – longneck Aug 18 '12 at 12:49
  • indeed, when the Psion devices establish a RDP session to the windows 7 laptop, the roaming seems to work well – Patrick D'Haese Aug 18 '12 at 12:52
  • What was your testing methodology? Did you hAve the two psion devices next to eachother, one connected to the server and having problems, and the other connected to the windows 7 laptop and working fine? Your problem is such a classic description of a wireless roaming problem that I am having a hard time suspecting a server problem. – longneck Aug 18 '12 at 12:57
  • I did some research about wireless roaming and I share your doubts. I looked into the RDP and the server configuration but I couldn't find any parameters/settings to solve these issues. – Patrick D'Haese Aug 18 '12 at 13:01
  • the testing happened with one Psion device. A RDP connection to the win 2008 server freezed when roaming. The same device connected to the Win 7 laptop did not freeze when roaming. Please also note that these last tests were executed by the supplier of the AP. Before this they reconfigured the AP and installed the latest software revision on the AP. – Patrick D'Haese Aug 18 '12 at 13:05