RDP Licencing Errors

Question

We have a Windows Server and 10 Client RDP, which all work most of the time. We have intermittent problems where the following error comes up on the clients:

Error message: The remote session was disconnected because there are no Remote Desktop client access licenses available for this computer.

The clients range from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

I have found the solution to this and deleting the registry key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSLicensing) allows the client to generate a new licence and it will work again for some time.

The problem is this sometimes happens when nobody is around to fix it.

Is the anyway to avoid this entirely? Possibly by forcing a re-request for a new key every time or auto deleting the current one?

Answer 1

The most common solution to this problem is to ensure that the licensing mode of the server is set to "Per user" and not to "Per device".

It can be changed in two places:

Change licensing mode using Group Policy (link)

1. Open Group Policy.

2. In Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Terminal Services, double-click Terminal Server Licensing Mode.

3. Click Enabled.

4. Click "Per User", and then click OK.

Change licensing mode using Terminal Services Configuration (link)

1. Open Terminal Services Configuration via Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Terminal Services Configuration

2. In the console tree, click Server Settings

3. In the details pane, right-click Licensing Mode, and then click Properties

4. Select "Per User", and then click OK.