shipped Vista machine - now can't access

[Guest]

I shipped a machine that used to be my old development machine. It was
running Vista 64-bit Ultimate edition. When it was still with me, I would
frequently connect to it via remote desktop from home and from work.

I'll spare the details, but I ended up shipping the computer off to my
parent's house on the other side of the continent. They plugged it into the
Ethernet port at their house and powered it up.

When it booted up, it acquired an IP address (I see its lease in the router
logs) and I can ping it (from another computer on the subnet). I can't,
however, connect to it via remote desktop.

My parents don't have administrative privileges to this machine, and since I
can't connect remotely, I can't administer it either.

I suspect that I cannot connect via remote desktop because when it was
plugged into the new network, it does not know how to treat that network
until it's authorized as a private network. Is this indeed the likely case,
or could this be something else?

The machine is on a domain and so probably would recognize the network as a
domain network (traffic is allowed on port 139 to the domain controller).
Why wouldn't it have recognized it as a domain network and allowed inbound
connections?

Presuming the problem is due to the network type not allowing inbound
connections, what could I have done in advance to authorize the network
before I shipped the machine so that I would have remote access to it when it
arrived?

I can probably get access to the machine by having an unprivileged user log
in and then send a remote assistance request, so I should be able to address
this particular incident. I'm more interested in answers to the general
question, "how does one ship a Vista to a remote location such that an
administrator can connect remotely?"

 

[Robert L [MVP - Networking]]

Do a simple test. Can you telnet port 3389?

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
I shipped a machine that used to be my old development machine. It was
running Vista 64-bit Ultimate edition. When it was still with me, I would
frequently connect to it via remote desktop from home and from work.

I'll spare the details, but I ended up shipping the computer off to my
parent's house on the other side of the continent. They plugged it into the
Ethernet port at their house and powered it up.

When it booted up, it acquired an IP address (I see its lease in the router
logs) and I can ping it (from another computer on the subnet). I can't,
however, connect to it via remote desktop.

My parents don't have administrative privileges to this machine, and since I
can't connect remotely, I can't administer it either.

I suspect that I cannot connect via remote desktop because when it was
plugged into the new network, it does not know how to treat that network
until it's authorized as a private network. Is this indeed the likely case,
or could this be something else?

The machine is on a domain and so probably would recognize the network as a
domain network (traffic is allowed on port 139 to the domain controller).
Why wouldn't it have recognized it as a domain network and allowed inbound
connections?

Presuming the problem is due to the network type not allowing inbound
connections, what could I have done in advance to authorize the network
before I shipped the machine so that I would have remote access to it when it
arrived?

I can probably get access to the machine by having an unprivileged user log
in and then send a remote assistance request, so I should be able to address
this particular incident. I'm more interested in answers to the general
question, "how does one ship a Vista to a remote location such that an
administrator can connect remotely?"

 

[Guest]

I did attempt this test. I could not attempt it from the machine on the same
subnet (as it did not have telnet yet installed). I did, however, forward an
external port to port 3389 on the target machine, and it could not connect
(timed out).

C:\Users\jaraco>telnet ranchero 3391
Connecting To ranchero...Could not open connection to the host, on port
3391: Connect failed

Note that 3391 on ranchero is indeed mapped to the machine in question.

I have since found that non-Administrative users can't currently log in,
perhaps due to activation. This may be the cause of remote desktop not being
available. I will report further when I have more information.

 

[Guest]

It turns out that it was indeed an activation problem. It took a week and a
half to ship it (5 days ground + 1 missed delivery + 2 weekends), and during
that time, the grace period for activation had expired.

As soon as I read my administrator password over the phone, they were able
to activate and after a restart, remote desktop was accessible.

To answer my own question, to avoid this problem in the future, I need to
make sure the machine is activated before I mail it out, particularly if it's
going to exceed the grace period while in transit.

Thanks to Robert for his suggestion.

Regards,
Jason

 

[Robert L [MVP - Networking]]

Thank you for the update.

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
It turns out that it was indeed an activation problem. It took a week and a
half to ship it (5 days ground + 1 missed delivery + 2 weekends), and during
that time, the grace period for activation had expired.

As soon as I read my administrator password over the phone, they were able
to activate and after a restart, remote desktop was accessible.

To answer my own question, to avoid this problem in the future, I need to
make sure the machine is activated before I mail it out, particularly if it's
going to exceed the grace period while in transit.

Thanks to Robert for his suggestion.

Regards,
Jason