Why does Remote Desktop need a internet connection to work?

Question

If our DNS Server is not connected because our internet connection is down then we can not connect to a windows server 2008 R2 session.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks

Answer 1

Thank you for posting in Mac forum.

Internet connection is required in order to initiate the remote desktop connection.

For more information on troubleshooting Remote desktop problems, refer to the link below:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Troubleshoot-Remote-Desktop-problems

Answer 2

Hey Doug,

Have you tried connecting with via IP address instead of the system's host name? I'd assume that if the DNS server isn't connected, RDC can't resolve a host name and therefore can't connect to a machine. Connecting via IP address should take care of that.

Answer 3

Yes I did use the IP address instead of the name, with the same results.  

Now comes the strange part.  If I go to my network settings within System Preferences and take out the dns server entry (leave it blank), it works fine.

Also I can run remote desktop from a windows workstation and it will connect to the Windows Server without any problems regardless if there is an internet connection.