Why does remote desktop not work for me by computer name, and only by IP?

Question

I have a computer at work that I can only connect to remotely when using the computer's IP address and not when using the computer's name.

I can see my computer name is set up correctly as "JoshPC" (for example), and there don't appear to be any conflicts with other PCs names.

What could be going wrong? I've flushed the DNS cache on the PCs attempting to remote in but no luck.

Edit:

• The PCs are on the same network as each other
• I've tried ipconfig /registerdns and received no errors (although not waited 15 mins yet)
• ping -a [IP] gives the right name
• I've tried using the fully qualified computer name

Answer 1

I hope you are connecting from a machine in the same network and both are Windows. From the machine where you are remoting to JoshPC, What does ping -a <IPofJoshPC> give? Does it give a different computer name? If so then your DNS server is not updated with resource records of JoshPC. From JoshPC, try ipconfig /registerdns. It will take 15 mins or so to register that computers resource records with DNS.

Edit1: Saw you update. Interesting! After some waiting, if it still does not work, i suggest trying to access machine with FQDN if you have not tried it yet. I did not encounter this error inside office, but when i used VPN from home, i usually get this errors. Just giving computer name will not connect, but giving the Full-Qualified name will connect.

Edit2: If the above fails, try using nslookup for JoshPC and compare the IPs you get. If these are different, then your DNS is definitely not updated. Try contacting administrator or flushing and registering with DNS.

Answer 2

It seems that the DNS Server (the one holding the IP -> Name resolution) has cached wrong IP -> name pair. Ask your System Administrator to remove the entry & then try remoting.

Answer 3

Not a fix, but have you considered adding a hosts file entry as a workaround?

Answer 4

I am having the same problem. The problem only happens when trying to access from other one computer.The only difference between this one and the other computers is the remote desktop version. The version working well allows network level authentification. But I cannot understand how this could affect the DNS identification process.

Answer 5

I've had this issue occasionally and it's been our experience so far that it might be linked to high CPU usage. If the CPU is being hammered, connecting through RDP becomes unreliable. Either we can't connect at all or we experience the same phenomenon of being able to connect with the IP, but not the host name. If we wait for the CPU to calm down, then it works more consistently.

I realize this is anectdotal, but I hope it helps.