RDP: login fails when pasting password

Question

There is a strange problem i'm seeing when using remote desktop. I have passwords stored in notepad (yes, I realize i have passwords stored in notepad). When I copy/paste the password from notepad to RDP login, the login fails. When I type the password, the login works.

I am not getting any spaces or extra charactors when copying (verified by using a hex editor). The password is exactly as I type it (not replacing 1 for I or anything like that).

After I have successfully logged in, I can logout and then paste the password from notepad and it will work. I don't know how long before it will stop working again, but I've run into this many times.

Any ideas? I've also had this happen when logging into sharepoint.

• Windows 7, lastest updates
• AD Domain (there are no policies)

Answer 1

I had a similar issue. I was using Windows 7 on my workstation, and the issue was occuring with both Windows 2008 and Windows 2003 servers. I appeared to be pasting no extra characters - for an 8 character password, 8 circles appeared.

When logging in to a Windows 2003 server, after the login failed, I'd see 13 circles. However, if I intentionally typed an incorrect 8 character password, I'd see 8 circles. Clearly the password I thought I was sending was not being sent.

I used a third-party app (Ditto, in this case) to do a "Plain text paste". This login was successful. So somehow, extra data is being pasted. I'm living with this workaround, for now. I'm not sure if this is the case for you, but trying a "plain text paste" may help.