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C.O.D. Protests The Protect IP Act

C.O.D. Protests The Protect IP Act

Personally, I am sick and tired of the United States government meddling more and more in our lives.  The movie and music industry is using our elected officials like puppets (muppets) and we are sitting idly by and letting it happen.  Well, I signed the petition, and my voice will be heard next election.  G.R.I.P. – Get Rid of Incumbent Politicians.  If we really want to make changes, we have to get those that pander to big business out of office and let them know that we have the power to do it.  After all, they are there to represent Read More…

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Many XP users have been blaming Service Pack 3 for breaking remote desktop connections to their machines.  I, for one, have been unable to RDC into my Windows XP machine since the upgrade to Service Pack 3 as well.  However, the issue isn't with Service Pack 3 at all! Nvidia is at fault!

I spent days (counted the hours) trying to figure out what changed in Service Pack 3 that would break Remote Desktop.  Visiting the Microsoft site and learning about the new security measures and how to enable the Credential Security Service Provider yielded no results.

In case you are interested:

Oddly, around the same time I installed Service Pack 3 I also updated my nVidia drives to help me connect a Windows XP machine to a television in my office. This is where the problem comes from.  Unfortunately, I can't tell you which versions of the driver the issues start with; I can tell you how to fix it.

NOTE: Editing the Registry incorrectly can cause serious, system-wide problems that may require you to re-install your operating system to correct them. Microsoft nor computingondemand.com cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the use of Registry editing can be solved. Back up your registry first, but use at your own risk.

  1. Start, Run, type regedit and press OK
  2. Navigate to the Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management]
  3. Right click in the Details pane and Select New --> DWORD Value
  4. Name it: SessionImageSize
  5. After it is created, double click on it and change its value to: 20
  6. Exit the Registry Editor and Reboot.

I also have a .reg file you can download: nvidiaregfix

As always, right click and verify its contents before importing into your Regsitry.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management]
"SessionImageSize"=dword:00000020

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Joe DiFiglia has written 195 Articles at C.O.D.


In early 2000 I became increasingly frustrated with hardware review sites praising less than satisfactory products. The saying: “if you want something done right, do it yourself” applies here. I wasn’t satisfied, so I did it myself; and here we are years later.

30 Responses to Nvidia Drivers Break Remote Desktop

  1. Tim says:
    May 6, 2010 at 12:02 pm

    Wow, that fix is easy, and useful too! Now I can remote to a Dell Precision T3400 with an nVidia Quadro NVS 290. Thank you!

    • dabeastro says:
      February 25, 2011 at 6:31 pm

      Maybe this thread should be revived? I have tried the fix, (several times with reboots), triple checked, and still no RDP. I know it is the driver, uninstalled the nvidia driver and was able to remote. Put it back, no go. Any thoughts?

  2. Mark Haas says:
    April 20, 2010 at 7:50 am

    Thank you so much. It worked perfectly! I have a pain customer that every issue is my fault. Thank you for the great experience and input.

  3. Jason says:
    April 12, 2010 at 9:38 am

    This worked perfectly! Each time an attempt was made to connect from the host to the client, the client session would freeze and only a hard shutdown would bring the system back up again. I modified the registry as stated here rebooted, that instantly fixed the issue. Thanks!

  4. Jeff says:
    January 6, 2010 at 5:28 pm

    One more thank you. I was vexed by two Dells that had these woes. One day folks will write beautiful songs about you.

  5. harringg says:
    December 11, 2009 at 9:37 am

    One more “Worked for me!”.

    NVidia GeForce 6200, 178.24, XP Pro SP3

    Thanks!

  6. DavidSp says:
    December 8, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    Thanks so much for posting this! I just bought a new HP laptop with an NVidia GT230M video card, and your post fixed my aggravating problem!

  7. GlennM says:
    December 8, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!! This solved my problem with a new rack mount Dell R5400, Quadro FX570. Straight out of the box, couldn’t remote into it. Got the wonderful “tsddd.dll failed to load” Just spent 4 hours searching and trying new drivers to solve this. Thank you again!!

  8. greg says:
    November 3, 2009 at 1:23 pm

    This solved the problem for me. I had the “latest” drivers for a nVidia GeForce FX5200 (5/16/2008: 6.14.11.7519), and RDC just disconnected immediately when connecting. I could go back to a 2003 driver, but it didn’t support the resolutions I wanted. This solved the problem perfectly. I only wish I had a remote clue as to what the solution actually does/did. Thanks! I’m amazed!(no hats off to nVidia here – lame…)

  9. Eric says:
    October 2, 2009 at 12:08 pm

    Worked as advertised on NVS 290. Thanks for the post, saved me lots of time.

  10. Wal de Mar says:
    September 21, 2009 at 9:24 am

    Thank You VERRRRY VERRRRY MUCH
    now it works like a charm! :)

    My problem with Remote Desktop was on 70 HP XW4600 workstation PC’s with nVidia Quadro graphic card. I know, that new version of drivers solved this issue, but problem was how to update drivers without login to RDP… I spent hours tying to solve this case, but then I googled Your solution :D and I’m happy now ;)

    Greetings from Poland! 1 more time – thanx 4 sharing!

  11. ThankfulReader says:
    September 18, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    This worked on an nVidia 9300. Thanks!!

  12. RickG says:
    September 4, 2009 at 12:24 pm

    Running Quadro 140M on a Dell Latitude (dual monitor set-up) and Remote Desktop won’t open a window. (It used to work, but it’s been several updates since I tried to use it). The SessionImageSize DWORD was already in the registry with a setting of 0×00000030. Is the “key” to this fix the presence of the DWORD, or is it the value associated with it?
    Just noted that I’m running driver 185.85. I’m going to try to revert to an earlier version.

  13. jcalabre says:
    August 7, 2009 at 8:33 am

    nice work. fix works perfectly!

  14. KangKeng says:
    August 5, 2009 at 4:06 am

    This was a real puzzle until I found your post. Many many thanks!! Setting it to 0×20 worked great for our nvs 290

  15. kimputer says:
    July 3, 2009 at 3:50 am

    My god, you’re a life-saver, how’d ya find out about this ridiculously hidden reg-key ? (7200GS)

  16. Barry Irwin says:
    June 30, 2009 at 2:55 am

    Hi

    Problems still persist with 182.85, I’ve once again rolledback to 178.13. I’m using a session size of 42 (64MB) which is whats stable with the dual nvidia setup I’m running.
    http://lair.moria.org/blog?p=156 for more details

  17. Simon says:
    May 8, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    Worked for me!

    Thanks a lot for posting your solution!!!!!
    It really helped me a lot!

    XP Pro French SP3
    Nvidia onboard video card

  18. bbrains says:
    May 2, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    Joe, fantastic sleuthing work and thanks so much for tracking this down. I’ve been bashing my head against a wall for months trying to solve this. I even bought a new nvidia card, which didn’t help (for obvious reasons).

    RDP now working with a GeForce 9800 GTX+

  19. tater says:
    April 29, 2009 at 6:07 pm

    You sir, are a hero. This has been a major problem for like 3 weeks. I was about to reinstall windows on 3 computers to try and fix this. Thank you.

  20. yili says:
    February 23, 2009 at 6:01 am

    It works for me!
    8400GS!

  21. Tom Bright says:
    February 7, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    This saved me a TON of problems… Thanks Joe!

  22. Tyler Thompson says:
    February 6, 2009 at 1:46 pm

    Thanks for the tip – it helped save a major headache with a remote client.

  23. Shaun Young says:
    February 4, 2009 at 3:38 pm

    Joe… I love you for a lack of better words! This absolutely worked and is the craziest thing I have ever dealt with. I’ve been deleting registry keys, reinstalling old chipset drivers for the Nvidia card, diagnosing what seemed to be networking problems for 3 days straight. Adding the key works! Thank you Joe! I cannot say that enough!