RDP Connection to XP from Windows 7 crashes part of XP

rdpwindows 7windows-xp

I have some XP machines that my users RDP into. If I RDP into the machine from something other than a Windows 7 box, and then RDP into the machine with a Windows 7 box, the XP machines crash (not BSOD though). I get an event ID 1003 with these details:

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 bf85b6b7, parameter3 b6149a88, parameter4 00000000.

I have this happening on quite a few machines, and I can reliably reproduce it. I've found no way to fix it. If I only connect from Windows 7 machines, it never fails. Any suggestions? (I've checked color settings and basic RDP client settings, and they all seem to match between the Windows 7 Clients and the XP clients).

Best Answer

I've tracked it down. It IS related to a color setting. On the Windows 7 boxes, we were connecting in 15 bit color mode, and on the XP machines we were connecting with 16 bit color mode. The failure happens as follows:

  1. Open a new session in 15 bit color mode.
  2. Disconnect from session (don't logout though).
  3. Connect to session in 16 bit color mode.
  4. Disconnect from session (don't logout though).
  5. Connect to session in 15 bit color mode.

Remote XP machine BSODs, and reboots. I didn't realize it was actually BSODing before (the remote XP machines are a physically remote location that is not staffed, so I didn't know this was occuring). This happens no matter what video card is the remote machine (did my testing on a remote VM).

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