Windows Server 2012 R2 Terminal Server Issue

[MoTastic]

I need some help with your server gurus out there.

 

We have an environment at the office that includes the following 

 

1 - San

1 - Domain Controller 

2 - Terminal Servers 

 

The servers are all running windows server 2008 but on Friday we had a bad surge and took out one of the terminal servers.  We ordered a new DELL last month and luckily had it available to install and replace one of the terminal servers. The new box has Windows server 2012 R2. 

 

I went ahead and purchased 50 licenses of the TS and installed it on the activation server. I see them on the license manager and users are able to login today and access their profiles. 

The thing that concerns me though is I keep getting the message in the bottom right corner that says RDP is not configured and i have 178 days left. If i look at the license manger it says 50 out of 50 licenses are available but users are logged in so wondering why is it not assigning the licenses to these users. 

Can someone please assist? I have attached some screenshots.

[sc302 Veteran]

Broken record here, check your event logs on both servers.  Make sure the port 135 is open and communicating between the servers. 

[grunger106]

Agree with sc302 - always check the logging

 

However, that status means whatever licence server this box is using has not had the mode of the CALs it distributes selected and is in the grace period.

Was this server a (or the) licence server for the farm? Or have you installed the licencing role on this server and not intended to?

Open up the licencing manager options and select either Device or User as the CAL type and then it should be OK.

 

[MoTastic]

Well this server is the one that is going to be handing out the CAL's for the 2012 users, correct? Or would that be coming from the DC? The DC is server 2008.

 

The server does have them setup as user cal's not device cals. 

 

-Mo

[sc302 Veteran]

you can setup your license server on any server in the domain.  Doesn't have to be a dc, nor does it have to be a RDS server...it can be either or it can be its own server. 

 

The license server needs to have the licenses on it and be accessible to the rds server. 

[grunger106]

RDS CALS are not the same as Windows User CALS....

 

RDS - Per User or Per Device?

Per Device: CALs for the device get stored in the registry of the machine/device that access’s the TS/RDS server. When issued it expires after a number of days (a random number between 52 and 89 days) at this point it’s freed up to be issued again.

Per User: In this mode the CAL is issued to the user, if one user logs onto multiple devices you only use 1 licence.

Note: As a rule of thumb if you have more devices than users, choose per user. If you have more users than devices then choose per device.

 

You need to specify the RDS servers licensing mode, I assume you have a single multi-role RDS unit and not a farm.

On your RDS

Launch the “Remote Desktop Services Host Configuration” console, and check the licensing section, it should give the licensing mode as “Per User” or “Per Device", I bet on yours it says not specified and that's your issue.....

 

[tehsteve86]

This brings back good memories. I actually experienced the exact same error message in Server2008 & Server2012R2. The first thing I did was try to manually delete the grace period registry key. You can try this by going to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\RCM\GracePeriod   and deleting everything besides "Default" and rebooting. I used my local admin account to perform this deletion since my domain admin account keep getting access denied to the registry (resolved this issue later lol). I heard this method worked for some people. But not me. So onward I pushed.

 

I then re-applied the license and still it was in trial. Damn. Finally, I decided to do it one more time and got lucky. The solution was under "Licensing Program" you have options retail/open/select/enterprise/campus/school/other agreements to pick from. Turns out that the key I obtained, I was applying it under "Other", when I was supposed to be applying it as an Open License. As soon as I chose Open License. It automatically fixed itself up. Weird but it might work for you.

 

I'm amused at the fact that "Other" took the license and listed it in the License Manager. It should of error-ed out immediately to save the aggravation.

Also amused that both other and open license had the exact key lengths to enter in.

 

So yeah, take a closer look at your licensing program.

Edited January 21, 2016 by tehsteve86

[Arkos Reed]

It's a bug I encountered when creating our 2012R2 Terminal Server farm, no matter what you do in the GUI, the licensing mode and server are never set

You need to do it via powershell, or the registry

 

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askperf/2013/09/20/rd-licensing-configuration-on-windows-server-2012/

 

 

[sc302 Veteran]

I just set up a server farm.  No problems taking licensing mode.  Very possible doing something wrong,  but I wouldn't know what without seeing the environment.  

[xplatinum]

If all your terminal servers are running 2008 why do we not see the 2008 CALs in your screenshot? Did you add the CALs to the server holding the other ones? It's not on the terminal server itself that you need to install the CALs on.

 

The users are able to login because you are in the grace period. It appears that your new server is also not configured to point to server License Server holding the new 2012 R2 licenses.

 

AFAIK you cannot have a mix of 2008 and 2012 in a single farm/collection. You will need to isolate the 2012 R2 server and create a collection for it in Server Manager and configure the deployment to point to the License Server holding the new CALs.