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Troubleshooting TS Licensing Installation

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

You can check the configuration of your Terminal Services license server and identify common licensing problems for a terminal server by using the following:

  • Review Configuration in the TS Licensing Manager tool

  • Licensing Diagnosis in the Terminal Services Configuration tool

Reviewing the configuration of your license server

After installing and configuring the TS Licensing role service on a Windows Server 2008 computer, you can use Review Configuration in the TS Licensing Manager tool to review the configuration of the license server. You can use Review Configuration to help identify possible TS Licensing configuration problems on the license server that would prevent the license server from doing the following:

  • Being discovered by terminal servers.

  • Issuing Terminal Services client access licenses (TS CALs) to users or devices connecting to a terminal server.

  • Tracking and reporting the issuance of TS Per User CALs.

Note

Review Configuration is used to identify possible TS Licensing configuration problems on a license server, not configuration problems on a terminal server. To be alerted to possible licensing discovery and configuration issues on a terminal server, use Licensing Diagnosis in the Terminal Services Configuration tool. For information about Licensing Diagnosis, see Diagnosing licensing problems on your terminal server.

Important

To use Review Configuration, the license server must be a member of an Active Directory domain.

The following is a list of some of the things that Review Configuration will check about the configuration of a license server:

  • If the discovery scope for a license server is set to Domain, Review Configuration will check if the license server is installed on a domain controller.

  • If the discovery scope for a license server is set to Forest, Review Configuration will check if the license server is published in Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS).

  • If the discovery scope for a license server is set to either Domain or Forest, Review Configuration will check if the license server is a member of the Terminal Server License Servers group in AD DS.

  • Review Configuration will check if the License server security group Group Policy setting is enabled and applied to the license server.

Note

For more information about the License server security group Group Policy setting, see "Control the Issuance of Terminal Services Client Access Licenses (TS CALs)" in the TS Licensing Manager Help in the Windows Server 2008 Technical Library (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=107405).

You can also change the discovery scope of the license server in Review Configuration by clicking Change Scope. For more information, see "Change the Discovery Scope of a Terminal Services License Server" in the TS Licensing Manager Help in the Windows Server 2008 Technical Library (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=107404).

The location of the TS Licensing database is also shown in Review Configuration.

Use the following procedure to review the configuration of a license server by using TS Licensing Manager.

Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, on the license server, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

To review the configuration of a license server by using TS Licensing Manager

  1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, point to Terminal Services, and then click TS Licensing Manager.

  2. In the left pane, click All servers. In the right pane, in the Configuration column, you will see either OK or Review. Review indicates that there is a possible configuration issue with the license server.

  3. To review the configuration details of a license server, do one of the following:

    • Select the license server that you want to review, and then on the Action menu, click Review Configuration.

    • Right-click the license server that you want to review, and then click Review Configuration.

    • If Review is displayed in the Configuration column for a license server, click Review.

  4. In the Configuration dialog box, a list of messages will provide you with information about the configuration of the license server and identify possible configuration issues.

    For certain configuration issues, you will be able to correct the problem from within the Configuration dialog box, if you have the appropriate administrative privileges. For example, if the license server is not published in AD DS and you have Enterprise Admins privileges in AD DS, you can click Publish in AD DS to correct the problem.

Diagnosing licensing problems on your terminal server

Terminal Services Configuration for Windows Server 2008 includes the Licensing Diagnosis tool. Licensing Diagnosis provides information to help identify possible licensing problems for the terminal server.

Each user or computing device that connects to a terminal server must have a valid Terminal Services client access license (TS CAL) issued by a Terminal Services license server.

A terminal server must be able to contact (discover) a Terminal Services license server in order to request TS CALs for users or computing devices that are connecting to the terminal server.

The primary purpose of Licensing Diagnosis is to determine which license servers the terminal server can discover and whether those license servers have TS CALs available to issue to users or computing devices that are connecting to the terminal server. In addition, Licensing Diagnosis will try to identify any possible licensing problems and provide suggested resolutions to those problems.

Use the following procedure to run the Licensing Diagnosis tool.

Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

To run the Licensing Diagnosis tool

  1. Open Terminal Services Configuration. To open Terminal Services Configuration, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, point to Terminal Services, and then click Terminal Services Configuration.

  2. In the left pane, click Licensing Diagnosis. Licensing Diagnosis will automatically run and try to discover license servers and identify licensing configuration problems, and then display the results.

There are four main sections to Licensing Diagnosis:

  • Terminal Server Configuration Details, which displays configuration information about the terminal server, including the licensing mode and discovery mode that have been specified for the terminal server.

  • Licensing Diagnosis Information, which displays any licensing problems that were identified along with suggested resolutions to the problems.

  • Terminal Services License Server Information, which displays the license servers that were discovered by the terminal server.

  • License Server Configuration Details, which displays configuration information about a license server, including the type and version of TS CALs installed and available on that license server.

To view the configuration details of a selected license server, the account that you are logged on as needs administrator privileges on the license server. If your account does not have administrator privileges on the license server, you can use Provide Credentials in the Licensing Diagnosis tool to provide credentials that have administrative privileges on the license server.

Important

To view the configuration details of a Windows 2000 or a Windows Server 2003 license server, you must provide the credentials of the built-in local Administrator account on the license server. The credentials of any other account, even if that account has administrator privileges on the license server, will not allow you to view the configuration details.