If a Windows server is unreachable over RDP and the event log contains "Remote Desktop Services took too long to load the user configuration", the following registry change resolves it in most cases.
Editing the registry can render a server unbootable. Take a snapshot or a backup first — see Backups and snapshots for CloudVM virtual servers — and note that you will need console access to apply this, since RDP is precisely what is not working: What is IPMI (IP-KVM) and how do I connect to it? for dedicated servers, or Managing your CloudVM virtual server in the client area for virtual ones.
The change
In the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
create a value named DisableTaskOffload of type DWORD (32-bit) and set it to 1.
Or apply it with a .reg file
Create a file with the extension .reg containing:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] "DisableTaskOffload"=dword:00000001
Run the file and confirm the prompt; the value is added to the correct key.
Restart the server
The change takes effect only after a restart. Until then the behaviour is unchanged, so do not conclude that it has not worked before rebooting.
What this does
It disables the offloading of network task processing to the network adapter. Where the adapter or its driver handles offloading incorrectly, connections stall in ways that surface as timeouts during logon — which is what produces this particular message. Turning offloading off moves that work to the processor: on a modern server the cost is negligible.
If it does not help
The same message can have other causes. Worth checking:
- Free disk space on the system drive. A full system drive prevents the user profile being loaded.
- Sessions left open. Without additional licences Windows Server allows two simultaneous administrative connections, and sessions that were closed rather than logged off keep occupying them — see Additional Remote Desktop (RDS) licences for Windows Server.
- Whether the service is running. From the console, check that Remote Desktop Services is started.
- The network path. Confirm the port is reachable at all — see How to connect to a Windows server via RDP.
If RDP still does not work, open a ticket from your client area with the exact text of the log entries around the failed logon.
