There could be plenty of reasons for not being able to connect to Windows VPS via Remote Desktop. In this article we have compiled some possible causes of this issue along with their solutions.
Local Network Problems
Check VPS Resource Usage
Check Your Local System Firewall
Check if your local machine firewall is blocking outgoing Remote Desktop connections. Please make sure that RDP port must be kept open in local system firewall to be able to connect to Windows VPS.
How to Determine If Firewall is Blocking Remote Desktop Port?
Run following command in your local system command prompt to determine whether Remote Desktop port is blocked or not.
telnet localhost Remote-desktop-port // You would find Remote Desktop port in VPS login details.
OR
telnet 127.0.01 Remote-desktop-port // You would find Remote Desktop port in VPS login details.
If you see local machine firewall refusing outgoing RDP connections, your RDP port might be blocked. This article will guide you how to open a port in your system firewall. As an alternative, you can disable local system firewall temporarily and try to connect to Windows VPS. Check out this article to enable/disable Windows firewall.
Determine If Your ISP is Blocking Remote Desktop Port
From the command prompt run the following command to determine if your ISP is blocking outgoing Remote Desktop connections.
telnet VPS-IP-address Remote-Desktop-Port // You would find VPS IP address and port in VPS login details.
If you receive a message like following, your ISP is not blocking remote desktop connections.
Trying 192.168.1.1...
Connected to 192.68.1.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
If you receive the following message after a long delay, it indicates that your ISP is blocking the Remote Desktop connections.
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused
As an alternative, you can try to connect to your VPS using another ISP service provider. If you could connect to your VPS successfully from another ISP, your existing ISP is certainly blocking the Remote Desktop port. In such case, you can ask them to unblock the RDP top port.
Check If Windows VPS firewall is Blocking Remote Desktop Port