To most of the IT guys out there, I believe this is quite a common thing that you may have bumped into this and believe me, sometimes you thought you have done it right and still did not able to get it working.

Let me note that all the steps that you need to do in order to allow RDP to your Server (from some machine within the same Network).

Most people already know the step 1 and 2. What’s lacking here that you may not know is the step 3 (Fire Wall!)

Photo credits to www.clker.com

Step 1: Allow remote connections to this computer and grant login for RDP

1. Open RUN and enter “sysdm.cpl” and click “Remote” tabs.
   Alternatively, go to Explorer (Windows + E), right click anywhere, select Properties and click “Remote Settings” on the left panel.
2. You should see System properties panel as shown below.
   
3. Check “Allow remote connections to this computer“.  Refer to here for option “Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication (recommended)”
4. Click “Select Users” and add in any users that you want to allow remote connection. If it is for your own usage, you may just leave this empty. In scenario where you need to allow multiple users to access your computer using different account, you need to create local user and add them here. In a even more common scenario where your computer/server is joined to a domain, you can add in the domain users account here for remote access.

Step 2: Security Policy

1. At times, your server may need to join to a domain. Some domain policy may have configure the security policy to harden all domain servers. In this case, please check your local security policy and see if the Allow log on through Remote Desktop Services has included the login that you are gonna use. For simplicity, unless otherwise, use Administrator group of users which by default, granted permission to RDP.
2. To check, open RUN and fire “secpol.msc“
3. Navigate the left panel to “Security Settings” > “Local Policies” > “User Rights Assignment”
4. Look for “Allow log on through Remote Desktop Services” and see if your remote login is in this value. If not, “Please contact your server administrator” lol!

 

Step 3: Firewall!

1. Open RUN and enter “wf.msc” (shortcut to Windows Firewall).
2. Click “Inbound Rules” from the left panel
3. Look for “Remote Desktop – User Mode (TCP-In)” and “Remote Desktop – User Mode (UDP-In)” and make sure they are both enabled. If not, please right click and hit “Enable Rule”

 

Once the steps above are done, open Remote Desktop Connection program (or “mstsc” in RUN), specify the computer/server IP and start RDP!