RDPCLIP.exe Stalled

[Guest]

Recently installed the HP 1200 Series Laserjet driver on a pair of Windows
2000 Server SP4 machines. Immediately all printer redirection stopped...and
then later realized clipboard redirection was dead too. Uninstalled the
offending drivers from the Print Server Properties. A System Event persisted
even afterwards stating printer redirection had an internal error and failed.
Research on MSDN indicated to uninstall and reinstall terminal services on
the servers via Add / Remove Windows Components. Performed uninstall and
server rebooted. Now reinstalled terminal services.

RDPCLIP.exe now does not load even though it exists in the system32 folder
and exists in the registry under the rdpwd key for StartupPrograms. This
condition is incidental for both the servers taht the offending printer
driver was once installed.

Any suggestions?

 

[TP]

Is this the only thing not working properly after
your uninstall/reinstall?

Some things below for you to check, hopefully
they will help.

What happens if you run rdpclip.exe manually? If
things are normal it should start up and clipboard
mapping should start working.

What happens if you add notepad to the startupprograms?

Temporarily change it to rdpclip,notepad

The results should be that notepad starts up automatically
when you logon.

Is the fDisableClip set to 0 under

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Winstations\RDP-Tcp

If fDisableClip is set to 1 rdpclip.exe will terminate, because
clipboard mapping is disabled.

Check that rdpclip is still listed under Addins

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Addins\Clip Redirector

Name REG_SZ RDPClip
Type REG_DWORD 0x00000003

Thanks.

-TP

 

[Guest]

Inline commented:

Is this the only thing not working properly after
your uninstall/reinstall?

Apparently so. Since the rdpclip.exe is not loading and not running in Task
Manager as a process neither clip redirection nor printer redirection is
working. There also are NO events appearing under System in Event Viewer to
indicate anything had failed and Printer Server Properties are not even
showing TS ports. This is indicative that the rdpclip.exe is not loading.

Some things below for you to check, hopefully
they will help.

What happens if you run rdpclip.exe manually? If
things are normal it should start up and clipboard
mapping should start working.

I have run it manually but it had no effect. Doing it again even after
checking the registry key settings below still has no effect.

What happens if you add notepad to the startupprograms?

Temporarily change it to rdpclip,notepad

The results should be that notepad starts up automatically
when you logon.

Notepad did not run automatically on logon (remotely). Interesting, no?

Is the fDisableClip set to 0 under

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Winstations\RDP-Tcp

If fDisableClip is set to 1 rdpclip.exe will terminate, because
clipboard mapping is disabled.

fDisableClip was set to 1 in this case. Also fDisableLPT was set to 1.
They are now set back to 0. This is not the first time I had to go in and
flip these settings. Something has caused them to revert back at some point.
This would be the third time I had to set these in the last six months or so.

I also double checked the > HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal
Server\WDS\rdpwd for fDisableClip and fDisableLTP and they have been 0.

A curious note: I happened to see
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Winstations\RDP-Tcp
Domain is blank.

I am going to check a working terminal server and compare this area of
registry keys to see what may be different in values of these registry keys.

Check that rdpclip is still listed under Addins

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Addins\Clip Redirector

Name REG_SZ RDPClip
Type REG_DWORD 0x00000003

Yes. That is set.

Thanks.

-TP

After logoff and log back on, condition still persists, and the notepad
still does not start on its own with the temporary inclusion in the
StartupPrograms key.

Thanks back.
-RTH

 

[Guest]

Some more findings:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Winstations\RDP-Tcp
fDisableCpm was set to 1 when the good server was 0. Changed to 0 and
relog. No effect.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WDS\rdpwd
fDisableEncryption was 1 on the good server and 0 on the failed. Changed the
good server to 0, relog, and rdpclip.exe still loads on the good server OK.

 

[TP]

Did you check fDisableCpm? This controls
whether or not printer mapping occurs.

If printer mapping has been disabled, that
would explain why there are no TSxxx
ports. These ports are created as needed
when printers are redirected.

rdpclip.exe has nothing to do with the
printer autocreation/mapping.

These settings coorespond to what you
see in tscc.msc-->RDP-Tcp properties-->Client Settings
tab.

Not sure why they are being changed on you.
Maybe you should enable security auditing
on the Terminal Server registry key so you
can see what/who/when is changing the settings.

Weird why notepad is not launching. That is
why I wanted you to test, to make sure the
startupprograms was actually working.

I'll chew on this some more and see if I
can come up with something else.

Please let me know if you have more information.

Thanks.

-TP

 

[Guest]

fDisableCpm was corrected to 0 and still no results.

That is good to know that rdpclip.exe and printer mapping are two different,
unrelated functions.

I also looked at KBase 302443
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302443

It notes to ensure that rdpclip.exe is loaded as a process AND to ensure the
TS Client permissions are setup for users to have Virtual Channel permission.
I did find that Domain Users were not set with Virtual Channel permissions
while Administrators (such as myself) did. So I opened up permissions for
Virtual Channels on Users.

That does not alleviate the rdpclip.exe (and apparently the StartupPrograms
key) from not loading so I am still stuck.

 

[Guest]

Update:

Performed uninstall and reinstall of Terminal Services on the two problem
servers.

One is now back up with all printer and clipboard redirection capabilities
and RDPCLIP.exe is now running as a process. The other is still now working
so I am doing an uninstall of Terminal Services a third time on that one and
hopefully that one will heal up OK.

One hold-up. The notepad entry is still in the StartupPrograms value but
Notepad does not open on logon...don't know why not there. Perhaps the
Terminal Services installation is still partially broke...just not as broke
as beforehand.

 

[TP]

You might try widening your registry compare to
include as much TS-related entries as possible,
to hopefully catch any problems.

I would start with the rdpdr entries first and then
go through ALL the TS stuff you can think of.

In case you are not using one already, there are
much better tools than regedit for searching/comparing
etc., items in the registry.

Some things to search on and examine:

rdpdr
rdpdd
rdpcfgex
rdpwsx
rdpwd
termdd
termserv
terminal server
tdasync
tdipx
tdnetb
tdpipe
tdspx
tdtcp


If you want a better idea what is supposed to be
installed for terminal services, look at the tsoc.inf
file. If you want more information about .inf files you
can look in many of the OS resource kits available,
or I would recommend "Microsoft Windows XP
Registry Guide" by Jerry Honeycutt.

I would make sure you have a sound backup/recovery
system in place before proceeding.

It is normal for some things to be different between two
servers, but the entries relating to core TS device drivers,
etc., should be almost identical.

At some point it makes sense to try a repair using the
win2k install cd, then re-apply the service pack.

Strange why notepad is still not running on your machine.
I checked it again on two different servers, one win2k,
the other win2003, and they both open notepad upon
logon.

By the way, I have installed the 1200 driver on many
different TS servers, win2k, win2003, winxp, with no
trouble. Thought you would like to know.

Thanks for keeping me posted.

-TP

 

[Guest]

I did setup the auditing like you suggested.

I did compare and "open up" many of the registry key values; but your list
looks more comprehensive than my gross comparison. You mentioned a registry
tool that is better for comparing. What tool is that? Is it a Sysinternals
related tool? I can go there and look.

Thank you for the *.inf file tip. I will try that out. I have sniffed out
*.inf files before and I believe they are ASCII and not binary, if I am not
mistaken.

I am a little bit shy about doing a repair on Win2K Server and then
rebuilding the service packs because I did not install these servers and
there is likely something that I would have to shake down once built back up
to SP4. These servers are also the RDCs running DHCP, DNS, WINS, and some
other stuff like, one is the master browser or something like that. I'm just
concerned that fixing one problem by the repair method most likely will
create another one. I will do that as a last resort. Actually, the last
resort strategy is to build servers from scratch on Windows Server 2003 and
migrate over. These servers are just obtuse because they were upgraded from
NT 4.0 Server and this incident is one of many incidents where things that
are configured to work just don't work (according to the "book"). An example
is that the current server that now is working TS, it disregards the Default
Domain Controller Policy and Default Domain Policy. It enforces its own SAM
on clients that login...the SAM before the server was promoted as an RDC.
Since it is an RDC, I am unable to edit the local SAM. And there are several
other incidents like that. So it seems like it does need a repair windows
performed along with the HP 1200 Series driver that does work on other
servers but not this one.

What threw me off was HP 1200 Series driver also choking the second RDC.
The second RDC simply has not had many issues and seeing the same driver
choke printer redirection led me to believe the driver was not compatible. I
did not try the notepad trick on the second RDC; but I did try it on a member
server where TS redirection persisted to work fine, and it did not come up
either on that third server, so that is weird. And I do not think that
server was a NT 4.0 Server upgraded to 2000; but I could be mistaken.

 

[Guest]

Subsequent UPDATE:

The second problem RDC that did not regain printer and clipboard redirection
on the second reinstall of Terminal Services did regain redirection on the
third reinstall.

Must be some trash in the mix that had to be blown away.

For the fun of it, I threw "Notepad" in the StartupPrograms value to see if
it would startup on logon. NOPE.

 

[TP]

Thanks for the update. Hopefully all this info will help someone
else who is having this kind of problem in the future.

-TP