Remote Desktop "Your Credentials Did Not Work"

Question

So after searching I decided to post this question because all the solutions don't seem to reflect my situation.

Before we start I want to preface a few things:

• All Microsoft Account Passwords are correct (I've confirmed them by logging into to the respective MS accounts and I've reset the passwords just in case.
• Everything used to work prior to my upgrading the Main PC

OK, so I have 2 PC's:

• Main PC (Windows 11 Home) - account name "gil"
• HTPC (Windows 10 Pro) - account name "kgara"

I recently did a cpu/mobo/SSD upgrade on the Main PC and I performed a fresh windows 11 home install. Prior to this upgrade I was still using windows 11 under the same account on the Main PC and I was able to remote into the HTPC using the "kgara" username. Since my upgrade/fresh win11 install I keep getting the error "Your credentials did not work" and I can't for the life of me figure out why. please help

thank you,

Gil.

Answer 1

Hi,

R. Cord here, Independent Expert. Hope you are doing well.

Ensure that the user account "kgara" on the HTPC has the necessary permissions for remote desktop connections. To do this, right-click on the "This PC" icon on the HTPC and select "Properties". Then, click on "Remote settings" and make sure that the "Allow remote connections to this computer" option is enabled.

Try using the full username and domain name when connecting to the HTPC. For example, if the HTPC is on a local network, you can use the following format to log in: "htpc\kgara". If the HTPC is not on a domain, you can use the computer name instead of the domain name.

Make sure that your firewall is not blocking remote desktop connections. You can check this by temporarily disabling the firewall and attempting to connect to the HTPC again.

Try creating a new user account on the HTPC and see if you can connect to it using remote desktop. If you can, then the issue might be related to the original user account.

If none of the above steps work, try resetting the Remote Desktop settings on the HTPC. To do this, open the Registry Editor on the HTPC and navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server. Then, delete the "WinStations" key and restart the computer.

I hope one of these solutions helps resolve your issue.

Answer 2

Hey Cord,

thank you for the suggestions and apologies for the delayed response (life...you know how it is). I just wanted to give you an update. The only this I haven't tried were the last two, but as it stands I'm still having issues (even reset the password once again just to make sure I'm not crazy.) I'll try the new account and reg options this weekend and report back.

Regardless, thank you for the effort and helping me resolve this!

Answer 3

None of these options resolve the problem. In my case, remote PC is Win 11 Pro, HTPC is a new Win 11 Pro (new PC, new installation of Windows.)

In point of fact, your last suggestion to delete the "WinStations" key rendered the PC inoperable and required reinstalling the OS. I'd advise others not to try this.

So there's clearly some new feature or configuration of Win 11 that disables the RDP connection, since the other machines on this LAN all interoperate nicely on demand. Network setting is Private, BTW.

Anyone else have any insights? It would be great to fix this.

Answer 4

Is Microsoft this terrible that even they are unable to help?

Answer 5

I had the same issue and i got around it by either the following fixes:

1. Created a new local user account and logged into the remote desktop connection using the new local user account credentials.
2. Even though the only user administrator account was name 'Ryan', for whatever reason i had to use 'User' as the user name (same password)

Once point 2 worked me for, i stuck with that and deleted the local user account i created. I've attached some images which may help.

Bit of context. I had no issues making the remote connections work to a windows 10 PC, but the issues i faced were when attempting to connect to a windows 11 PC.