sysinternals Remote Desktop Connection Manager takes several minutes to connect

Question

When opening a connection, RDCMan takes several minutes (can be ~5 minutes) to connect, displaying "Connecting to" message. It usually also stops responding, but not always or not for the entire length of the "connecting to" wait. Once connected it works well. This is happening with version 2.93, but it was the same with 2.8.

Remote Destkop Connection app (msdtc.exe) does not behave like this on the same machine, connecting to the same remote host. It connects much quicker and needs around 15-30 seconds to connect, going through "Securing connection", "Configuring connection", etc., phases.

What is the difference between the two, I was assuming they both use the same underlying controls/libraries/os facilities (just with a different "shell")? How could I diagnose this, are there any logs? What could be the problem with RDCMan that does not affect msdtc.exe?

Answer 1

Hello Rudolph Holzbrenner 

RDCMan have more features or settings while mstsc.exe app is a more straightforward, which may affect the performance and connection times.

You might consider using ProcMon to monitor the activities of running processes, including RDCMan and mstsc.exe. It can capture file system, registry, and network activity, which can help identify issues.

 

Best regards,

Karlie Weng