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I recently installed Windows Server 2012 for development purposes at our office and noticed immediately that connecting via RDP is slow. It can take 5-10 seconds to connect at times, where as connecting to any of our Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 boxes takes at most 1-3 seconds.

At first, I chalked this up to the box itself needing a driver update or something, but just yesterday, I installed Windows 8 on my Desktop PC and connecting from home to that Windows Server 2012 machine produces the same result. There is a 3-4 second pause at "securing remote connection" and then again at "configuring remote session".

I don't see any warnings in the event log, and once connected, there do not appear to be any performance issues. Is there a known problem with RDP connections from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows Server 2012 systems? Anything I should look for?

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  • Which RDP client are you using?
    – Ramhound
    Dec 5, 2012 at 16:04
  • The built in Windows 7 RDP client.
    – Chris
    Dec 5, 2012 at 16:15
  • Except on Windows 8 there is two. One that is a desktop application the other is a Windows Store Application ( Modern UI ) so which one are you using. So how are you using the Windows 7 one if your using Windows 8/Windows Server 2012?
    – Ramhound
    Dec 5, 2012 at 16:17
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    I'm connecting from Windows 7 using the desktop RDP client.
    – Chris
    Dec 5, 2012 at 16:53
  • Update the question to reflect this fact. What do you get if you try connecting Windows 8 Professional to Windows Server 2012?
    – Ramhound
    Dec 5, 2012 at 17:09

7 Answers 7

Reset to default
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I experienced the same issue and resolved it by adding the registry setting referred to here.

  1. Open RegEdit on the Windows Server machine.
  2. Navigate to this registry key in the tree on the left:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

  3. Right-click on the right side, and add a new DWORD (32-bit) Value
  4. Set the value name to DisableTaskOffload and the value data to 1
  5. Reconnect to the Server via RDP (to a new session) and your performance should be normal.
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  • @schellack, Why does this work? How does it work?
    – Pacerier
    Mar 13, 2015 at 17:25
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    According to technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc959732.aspx, the DisableTaskOffload setting offloads tasks from the processor to the network adapter. This greatly improves performance. I don't, however, know why the setting is disabled in newer versions of Windows Server.
    – schellack
    Mar 13, 2015 at 17:31
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    @schellack There seems to be some confusion in your comment... The setting is called _DISABLE... Setting it to 1 will turn OFF task offloading, not ON. The default value is 0, meaning that by default task offloading is active.
    – Oskar Berggren
    Dec 5, 2015 at 14:44
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    TCP Task Offload has nothing to do with the problem. Do not do this. Best case scenario it would do nothing. Worst, your TCP/IP performance will be playin in "hurt me plenty" mode.
    – F.D.Castel
    Jul 3, 2022 at 1:46
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This has happened to me before. I solved it by going into the Remote Desktop Connection -> Experience tab and ensuring I didn't have "Detect connection quality automatically" selected. I also unchecked everything under "Allow the following".

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I have same problem .And I try do 2 step .

Step1: do like "schellack" say

  • Open RegEdit on the Windows Server machine. Navigate to this registry key in the tree on the left: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

  • Right-click on the right side, and add a new DWORD (32-bit) Value Set the value name to DisableTaskOffload and the value data to 1

  • Reconnect to the Server via RDP (to a new session) and your performance should be normal.

Step2: And Disable service Smart Card Device Enumeration:

  • Go to Run --> Services --> Smart Card Device Enumeration --> Disable

I think the main reason is Smart Card is enable cause delay remote desktop service. I hope this helps someone that has the same problem.

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  • 1
    Correct answer right here. Disabling the Smart Card Device Enumeration made a 100% improvement for me. This was obviously the culprit.
    – Bryan
    Jul 17, 2017 at 19:09
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    Is that enumeration on the client or server?
    – Rob
    Oct 16, 2017 at 10:00
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You can diagnose this a few different ways -

Use the NetBIOS name, then the FQDN, then the IP Address when using the RDP application. usually this is a name resolution delay and can be resolved by using the FQDN instead of the shorter NetBIOS name. Normally, after the first connect, subsequent connections should resolve faster as the name will be cached on the local machine.

If this is a machine you will be connecting to regularly AND that machine has a static IP address, you could add it to the local HOSTS file which should result in the faster negotiation that you are accustomed to.

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The problem is related to the Mouse Pointer Shadow Function.

Within RDP this leads to a hopping/slow mouse.

Correct this behaviour with Mouse -> Pointer -> Enable pointer shadow (disable)

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The problem that lead me to this page was concerning a remote desktop connection problem. I did a brand new installation of Server 2012 in VM ESXi 5.5 All the server was configured fine, DC and DHCP roles on, nothing else.

The console of ESXi was acting life a charm. Rebooting and connecting immediatly. But when it came the time to connect from remote desktop, the connection was taking several minutes before opening up. I didn't understand why because on the 2008 box besides it was fine!

Well all this time, the problem was related to Remote Registry service being Stopped. I wasn't able to start it because it was saying something about the connection user not the same than another related service.

Resolution: manually change the Connection settings in the Remote Registry setting for NT Authority\LocalService and no password required. Now the RDP connection goes well and it connects right after I enter my domain admin password.

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use this as right answer. this is from Microsoft software https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2915774

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