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No desktop in Terminal Services

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5 replies

by tjdavis

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I'm having a problem with a new Terminal Service configuration on Windows 2003 Server in application mode. Admin users can log in fine with no problems. One of the regular users can log in fine. Another regular user and a brand new user can log in, but the desktop and taskbar never display. Only the default blue background shows.

I cannot see any group or permission differences between the user who can log in and the ones that can't. The users who don't get a desktop can use ctl-alt-del to get to taskmgr. Explorer.exe is running. The event log doesn't appear to show any problems.

The problem seems to be tied to the login user as I've tried it from different clients with identical results.

Does anyone have any idea where I should be looking? Google hasn't really turned up anything for me.

5 replies

by p.j.hutchison

Could be a program or service that starts up that is preventing Explorer from loading correctly. Check Startup folders and Registry for programs that startup. Spyware can do this, try some spyware software on server e.g. Spybot.

by tjdavis

Well, it "shouldn't" be spyware (it's a pretty new server). Yesterday I tried removing all of the login scripts, just in case that was the problem.

The users in question don't have anything in the startup folder. I guess I'll check the registry.

On a side note, yesterday I downloaded AppLauncher and installed it in place of explorer.exe. It does start successfully for all users. I had other problems with it and ended up removing it, but it did start.

by tjdavis

P.J. was correct. I'm not totally sure if the problem was the fact that I turned off the startup scripts yesterday and rebooted this morning, or (most likely) that I did find a couple of shortcuts in the startup folder for All Users.

After removing the shortcuts and logging in as the problem users, everything worked correctly.

by hakoracle

by default 2003 having builting security policies normal users rights...
plz make changes in 2003 policies like access from network/login locally for terminal services....creat computer account for normal users....
make changes in policies

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