Unable to access a remote computer through Remote Desktop Connection when using a Microsoft Account

Question

Description of the problem: I am not able to connect through Remote Desktop Connection to access Computer A from Computer B. More specifically, when I am on Computer B, I am not able to access Computer A through Remote Desktop Connection. I was asked to provide username and password, but I kept getting told by a "Windows Security" window that said: "Your credentials did not work."

Observation 1: I was able to access Computer B from Computer A. (The other way around.)

Observation 2: The only difference as I can tell, is that: I used a Microsoft Account to log-in (locally and natively) on Computer B, and used a username alone to log-in on Computer A. The usernames on the two computers (locally speaking) are:

• Computer A: DESKTOP-XXX/username

• Computer B: [e-mail]

Both computers are running Windows 10 Pro.

Observation 3: I have made sure that the there is no firewall between the two computers. (They are connected through a Ethernet switch in my home network, connecting to the outside world through the home router.)

Question: what has been going wrong? Do I have to assign and use the same Microsoft Account on Computer A? I have made sure that the password has been correct all the times, but the problem is persistent: I cannot connect from Computer B to Computer A, yet I can connect from Computer A to Computer B.

PS: I has also asked the same question in the TechNet forum, yet I am not counting on it quite a lot. Ref url.

Additional Information

The address for Computer A and B

As I only have dynamic IP on both machines, I used No-IP's service. Thus, for the two computers, for example: * Address for Computer A: computer-A.ddns.net * Address for Computer B: computer-B.ddns.net

Additional Experiments

Shutting down Computer B

When I shut down Computer B, using the address computer-B.ddns.net to connect still gets me the same error message (as in the screenshot above).

Getting a different IP for Computer B

Per the initial experiment, two computers are hosted in the same home network. Thus, the public IP for the two machines should be the same. To get Computer B a different IP, I disconnect the machine from the home network and used the Personal Hotspot on my phone. This time, I get a new error message:

Answer 1

I had the same with a couple machines linked to MicrosoftAccount\user from installation, remembered my previous installs started with a local account and were later linked to my Microsoft account and that worked fine.

Decided to change my Account so to sign in with a local account, tested RDP and that worked fine, decided to "re-link" my Microsoft account... tested again and it was still working without issues. Not sure exactly what causes the issue but it seems that creating a local account fixes the behavior, likely reg keys or gpedit settings not correctly configured with the Microsoft account.

Further to the above, I believe (from later found articles) that if the user signs in with the Microsoft's account password at least once rather than the PIN the issue may also be fixed.

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2047664-remote-desktop-fails-after-changed-to-microsoft-account

Answer 2

I think, at least in my case, the problem was a lack of synchronization between the password on the machine and the password of the Microsoft account.

The way I think I resolved this was as follows:

1. Change my Microsoft Account password through the Win10 interface (under the "Users" control panel)
2. Log out.
3. Log in using the password (not using a PIN or face unlock)

Step 3 seemed to be key.

This resolved password problems both with remote desktop and with the task scheduler.

Answer 3

I am no expert, but these are my findings: I can only RDP on my Windows 10 PRO machines. All of my Windows Home or Premium will not work. MS does not allow it on those OS's. My MAC PRO however, with the older Windows for MAC RDP loaded, will work perfectly.

Answer 4

I had a similar problem signing in using the latest OSX (Mac) client. In my case, there appears to be a bug in the client if you have a password with a % character. Once I changed my password to remove this character, I had no problems logging in with username set to the result of "whoami" run in a command prompt window.

Incredibly frustrating that Microsoft can't properly encode characters.

Answer 5

For me it worked by logging in to my Microsoft Account on the target machine with the Password (not PIN) of the Microsoft Account once.

After that, I can RDP into the machine by using the credentials of the Microsoft Account without errors.