Sticky Windows Key In RDP 6 Client For Vista Resolved
Tuesday, 25 September 2007 by Michel Roth
This one has been driving me nuts ever since about 10 months or so. In the beginning I could never get a grip on what was going on. The only consistent thing I noticed was that when I was working in a Terminal Services session (which is a lot) sometimes my Windows key "got stuck". Virtually not physically... When I was typing in that Terminal Server session it caused my laptop to go seemingly nuts. I got loads of explorer windows, search windows, run boxes and even a locked computer. The only way I knew how to solve it was to hit the Windows key quickly several times in a row and the issue would go away.

Later on I figured out that this issue started to pop up ever since I installed the RDP 6.0 Client. I started to discuss this with my other colleagues and some had that issue and some did not. Those who did not have the issue had WindowsXP (still) installed (chickens ;-) ). Those who did have the problem had Windows Vista installed, just like me.

Today I found out that I was not mad and that there was no chewing gum beneath my keyboard. This is actually a bug in the RDP 6.0 client in Windows Vista. Check out this KB article:

Consider the following scenario.
• You type a keyboard shortcut on a Windows Vista-based computer.
• You are working in a Terminal Services session that was started by using Remote Desktop Connection 6.0 (RDC 6.0).

In this scenario, some keys in the keyboard shortcut may remain active. Therefore, in the Terminal Services session of the Remote Desktop window, some later keystrokes are interpreted as part of the previous keyboard shortcut. For example, this problem occurs if the following conditions are true:

• You lock the local computer by pressing the Windows logo key+L keyboard shortcut.
• You unlock the local computer.
• The Remote Desktop window is active.
When you press any key, various Windows keyboard shortcuts occur in the Terminal Services session. For example, when you press E in the Terminal Services session, Windows Explorer starts as if the Windows logo key is still held down.

So there's a hotfix available! It's a private one but I'm definitely going to get it (saves me a trip to the nuthouse).

Related Items:

Printers That Are Not Redirected In A Terminal Services Session (20 December 2005)
Remote user cannot unlock a Terminal Services session in Windows Server 2003 (12 July 2005)
How Terminal Services Works (Technical Reference) (13 June 2005)
Remote Desktop Client For MAC 2 Available (3 July 2008)
Terminal Services Architecture (14 February 2008)
Win32 Client Supported Configurations for Pass-Through Authentication (SSON) Of Windows Credentials (2 March 2006)
Introducing MSTSC /admin (19 December 2007)
Using Multiple Monitors in Remote Desktop Session (6 July 2009)
Session 0 Isolation Explained (1 May 2007)
An Introduction To Terminal Services Remote Programs (Part 3) (6 December 2006)
Comments (1)
written by Joe, March 17, 2009
I downloaded the Hotfix, Unpacked it and attampted to run it. I got a message saying: "This update does not apply to your system" However when I downloaded it from the Microsoft site it said it was for a 32 bit vista system.
So this hotfix did not resolve my issue, I just hit the windows key once on my local system and that solves the problem until next time. I almost prefer this to installing some hotfix that could potentially introduce new problems to my system.
Show/Hide comment form