Stuck on please wait screen using microsoft remote desktop

Q: How do I restart a stuck Remote Desktop?

From the remote computers Start menu, select Run, and run a command line with optional switches to shut down the computer:.

Like many already mentioned, if you are not running the RDS service, only 2 administrative logins are allowed at the same time.

Table of Contents Show

When I try to RDP to Windows 10 Pro machine it hangs at the "Please wait" screen for a user. The only way to fix it is to restart the remote machine and then try to remote in again. But the issue happens again.
Another working solution that didn't require a reboot was to RDP using an admin account, go to task manager>users, and then right-click on the previous user and select connect. Enter the password and your session will change to the previous user.
Connect using IP address instead of computer name
Login with a different user account
Getting Past The Remote Desktop Please Wait Blue Screen (Easy Method)
Remote Desktop Please Wait - Somewhat Less Easy Solution
Final Thoughts
How do I fix Remote Desktop please wait?
How do I unfreeze my Remote Desktop?
How do I restart a stuck Remote Desktop?
What to do if Remote Desktop is not responding?

If both are active, one has to be disconnected.
If noone answers the question, you are stuck, waiting for it to be released.

If thats not the case, try connecting without attaching client printers in the rdp client.

When I try to RDP to Windows 10 Pro machine it hangs at the "Please wait" screen for a user. The only way to fix it is to restart the remote machine and then try to remote in again. But the issue happens again.

Another working solution that didn't require a reboot was to RDP using an admin account, go to task manager>users, and then right-click on the previous user and select connect. Enter the password and your session will change to the previous user.

Windows OSWindows 10* Remote Desktop Connection

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I often use Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) to connect to computers remotely when I am out and about. However, recently when I tried to remotely connect using RDP, I became stuck at a blue screen with a “Please Wait” message after connecting.

After a few minutes of waiting, I became a bit suspicious that something wasn’t working correctly, especially since I was using the connection just fine a few hours before.

Below are some of the solutions I’ve found that may work if you find yourself with this problem.

Connect using IP address instead of computer name

The first thing I tried was to connect to the computer using its IP address instead of its name. This can be useful if there is a problem with resolving the name to an IP address, for example, if the DNS server is offline.

I had luck logging in to the computer with a different user account. This account could successfully login without getting stuck at the “please wait” message. After I was logged in, I used this account to forcibly sign out my primary account which was “stuck”.

Now that my primary account had been signed out, I tried connecting with it again and it worked!

Reboot

At worst these issues can usually be resolved by rebooting the computer. If you have someone nearby who can do this for you it is often the easiest solution. However, depending on your setup, you might be able to use a remote management tool to do this.

If you have PowerShell enabled, you may be able to use a remote PowerShell session to reboot the computer. Although, this usually needs to be enabled and setup in advance.

Summary

Hopefully this helps someone get past this particular issue faster than it took me! The solution which particularly worked for me was logging in with another account to end the session for the “stuck” account. After this, I was able to connect as normal without any problems.

Have an interesting issue that has started to affect one of our users. Also seems there are a few others having the issue on the internet.

We have a user with a brand new windows 10 laptop at home, they use our RD Gateway server to remote on to their brand new windows 10 machine in our office (using Remote Desktop Connection).

When they initially login to the machine in the morning it performs flawlessly, however the problem seems to arise when their laptop (being used to remote in with) goes to sleep. they then wake it and the remote desktop connection re-establishes itself but they are met with a blue screen with a message that simply read "Please Wait" (on the office machine)

we as admins have to then remote on to the users office machine as a different user account and "sign out" the user in task manager. which then allows the user to reconnect.

it looks like it maybe related to a new update or something.

the office machine is running Windows 10 21H1

anyone else expereinced or know of a simiar issue?

Microsoft - any light you can shed on the matter?

You get a remote desktop please wait blue screen when you’re trying to connect remotely to your computer via a Microsoft remote desktop session. No matter how long you wait, the session seems to be stuck on the login screen, showing you a blue screen with a message that says please wait. I know from first hand experience how frustrating this can be and I have wasted quite a bit of time figuring out how to get around this. That’s why I decided to put together the steps here that will help you work around the issue and successfully connect to your computer again.

This is what the remote desktop blue screen looks like:

Not very exciting ...

If the computer that you are trying to connect to is on a remote location, this remote desktop please wait issue can get especially annoying, because you might think you need to get over there in order to be able to physically sign in to the computer. On top of that, when you are trying to connect remotely to your computer and all you get is some strange blue screen that’s stuck in no man's land, you may start to imagine all kinds of scary scenarios about the state your computer’s actually in. For all you know it might be unresponsive because of a hack and all your files are being encrypted while you are fruitlessly trying to get a connection.

The good news is that this remote desktop please wait issue is a known “bug” in Windows 10 (and I’ve seen it happen with Windows 11 as well), so you don’t need to panic about cyber attacks right away.

Anyways, let’s get to the actual steps you can take to get connected to your remote computer.

Getting Past The Remote Desktop Please Wait Blue Screen (Easy Method)

The easiest way to get past the remote desktop please wait blue screen that I have found is by using a handy tool from Microsoft’s Sysinternals system tools.

The Microsoft Sysinternals Remote Desktop Connection Manager is what you need and you can download it for free here (link will open in a new window).

Once you have downloaded the tool, extract the files and double click the RCDMan.exe file to launch the application.

Then click on “Session” and “Connect to …” to:

Now enter your computer’s ip address or computer name like you normally would do in the remote desktop connection screen and enter your credentials, then click “connect”:

Remote Desktop Connection Manager will now open a session on your remote computer, which will allow you to work on the computer. You can also use it to look for the remote desktop session that’s stuck and log off the session.

To do so, click on session and log off.

Once the troublesome remote desktop session has been logged of, you should be able to remotely connect to your computer again like you used to do before the whole remote desktop please wait issue started.

Remote Desktop Please Wait - Somewhat Less Easy Solution

I’ve seen some cases where even with the remote desktop connection manager it didn’t work to get past the blue please wait screen. Another thing that you can try then is disabling the network level authentication (NLA), although I wouldn’t recommend leaving NLA disabled as this is less secure.

In order to get past the remote desktop please wait blue screen with NLA disabled, you need to create a simple .rdp file with a tiny modification that will force a Windows logon when starting your remote desktop connection. It’s just a tiny bit complicated to create and edit this file but if you carefully follow the steps outlined below it will work.

To get started, click the Windows start button and when the Windows start menu appears, type “mstsc” (without the quotes).

Windows will then show the remote desktop app under best match in the Windows start menu. Click that to open the remote desktop application.

Remote desktop will open with a screen that looks like this:

It will probably also contain the ip address or name of your remote computer.

Now click the “Show options” button.

That will open up the remote desktop extra options:

Here you can click the “Save” button to save your remote desktop file as an .rdp file.

Save it somewhere in a location where you can easily find it. You will need to edit the .rdp file with a text editor (like Notepad) in the following steps. You can save the .rdp file on your desktop if you like.

By default it will offer to save the file as “Default.rpd”, but you might want to give it a more meaningful name, like for instance “work-computer”.

Once you have saved the file, click that Windows start button and type “Notepad” (without the quotes) to search for your Notepad text editor.

Click the Notepad app under “Best match” to open Notepad.

In Notepad, click “File” -> “Open” and make sure to set the file type to “all files”:

Now navigate to where you saved your .rdp file and select the file to open it in Notepad.

With the file open, scroll all the way to the bottom of the file and press the ENTER key at the end of the last line in order to add an extra line of text.

Then, type “enablecredsspsupport:i:0” (without the quotes) or copy and paste from here so that you don’t make any typo’s (it has to be exact or it will not work). This is to turn of the Network Level Authentication and force Windows login.

Now save the file and quit Notepad.

If you now navigate to your modified .rdp file and double click it to launch, it will start the Windows remote desktop application and upon connection you will see a Windows style login screen.

Here you can enter your credentials and you should be able to sign in to your computer without the remote desktop please wait blue screen.

As mentioned above, it’s best to revert to re-enabling NLA after you’ve successfully connected to your computer (by removing the last line in your .rdp file), because this is less secure.

Final Thoughts

The remote desktop please wait blue screen issue is a known annoyance and Microsoft seems to leave us hanging here as there is no permanent solution that I know of. It seems to happen every now and then when a remote session is stuck in a loop and it can happen when you least expect it.

People have reported the issue when they were trying to connect via a VPN connection as well as regular connections without VPN.

Once I was notified of a user who managed to get past the remote desktop please wait screen simply by entering the computer’s ip address instead of the machine name, but that certainly doesn’t seem to always work.

Anyways, as annoying as this is, I hope that this article has helped you to solve the issue so that you no longer have to wait indefinitely on a screen that says please wait.

If you've enjoyed this article or found it useful, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know by clicking the Like (or Share) button below. Thank you!

How do I fix Remote Desktop please wait?

Run CMD to kill the program. Sometimes if the user leaves the connection and puts the PC to sleep, then the Remote Desktop will stuck on please wait. The better way for this is to kill the process and then restart the program.

How do I unfreeze my Remote Desktop?

Fix RDP freezing via Command Prompt.

Run Command Prompt as administrator on the client machine..

Run the following command: reg add “HKLM\software\policies\microsoft\windows nt\Terminal Services\Client” /v fClientDisableUDP /d 1 /t REG_DWORD..

Restart the client machine..

How do I restart a stuck Remote Desktop?

From the remote computer's Start menu, select Run, and run a command line with optional switches to shut down the computer:.

To shut down, enter: shutdown..

To reboot, enter: shutdown –r..

To log off, enter: shutdown –l..

What to do if Remote Desktop is not responding?

Method 1: Change Firewall Settings Step 2: Click Change settings on the top right corner. Step 3: Find Remote Desktop and then check the box under the Private tab. Click OK to save changes. Step 4: Close the window and then the Remote Desktop connection not working error should be fixed.