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Windows 10 Workaround Versus Fix

Ed Tittel
Ed Tittel

In the past day or so, I’ve found myself on the horns of an interesting dilemma. Upon trying to remote from one 18890 (Skip ahead) PC to another using RDP, I found myself unable to log in. I could ping one PC from another, and see it on the network, but when I tried to consummate the RDP login I’d get an error. That error informed me my login password didn’t work (even though I could use that same password to log into the target PC locally). Nothing I tried to fix the situation helped. Ultimately, I activated the built-in Administrator account. That got me an RDP session from one 18890 PC to another. It also raised an interesting question. Given limited time and energy to devote to troubleshooting, was I willing to settle for a Windows 10 workaround versus fix? You bet!

Even though I *KNEW* I was using the right password, my RDP login kept throwing this error message. Sigh.

Which is Better? Windows 10 Workaround Versus Fix

I’m not sure I can make that call myself. For me, it’s as much about how much time and energy it takes to solve a problem, as it is about figuring out and implementing a perfect fix. Consider these two givens. One, I was working on beta software for 20H1. Two, the problem only occurred when the beta software was involved (as a target). My production PC, traveling laptops, and family PCs (all running the latest Current Branch build for 1903/19H1: 17763.175) all worked fine. That is, all could RDP into the target PC without issue. Only when I tried to RDP from one 18890 PC into another did I experience this problem.

That’s what makes a workaround perfectly acceptable to me in this situation. Another build will come along sooner  or later (I’ve installed 18894 on one of those machines while writing this blog post, in fact). I’m hopeful but not convinced that the problem has already fixed itself. But I did find a viable workaround: as long as I log in with a local account using RDP, I can get into the machine I want to access remotely. For these test machines, that’s good enough for me!