Microsoft: Remote Desktop on Windows 11 22H2 broken, but Task Manager is your friend

The bugs and issues on Microsoft's new Windows 11 22H2 OS keep mounting. For example, the company finally acknowledged gaming performance issues on the new Windows version are indeed real after several user and reviewer complaints. Printer problems also forced Microsoft to put in an upgrade block, though, it has now been removed after reaching a resolution.

The latest issue is related to Remote Desktop connections where the Redmond company says that the Remote Desktop app could stop responding on Windows 11 22H2.

After installing Windows 11, version 22H2 (also called Windows 11 2022 Update), the Windows Remote Desktop application might stop responding when connecting via a Remote Desktop gateway or Remote Desktop Connection Broker.

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This issue can be observed when the client is at the "Loading virtual machine" or "Configuring remote connection" steps, and might occur regardless of the OS version installed on the remote computer. In some cases, the error message "Your Remote Desktop Services session has ended" can appear.

Microsoft says home users are unlikely to encounter this as the connection process is different. The company has provided a simple workaround for the issue which involves good ol' Task Manager:

Workaround:

If the Remote Desktop application becomes unresponsive, Windows Task Manager can be used to terminate it.

Press and hold the Ctrl, Shift, and Esc keys on your keyboard.

Select Processes from the left-hand side menu

In the list that appears, find the process mstsc.exe

Right-click on the process name and select End task

Aside from this, Microsoft has also provided steps to add a Group Policy to disable UDP which should prevent this issue from popping up. However, there is also a word of warning here related to WAN and how it can experience performance regression with this. Hence, it is recommended that this Group Policy change is reverted when the issue is resolved after a future Windows update.

Microsoft writes:

Warning: Remote Desktop sessions which connect over WAN (wide-area network) might experience poor performance following the application of the below workaround. Setting this policy also disables UDP (User Datagram Protocol) for all Remote Desktop connections made from the device. We strongly recommend that this Group Policy change is reverted once this issue is resolved in a future Windows update.

Here are the steps to disable UDP:

Devices that have encountered this issue can resolve it by configuring a special Group Policy.

Open the appropriate Group Policy editor.

For managed devices (common for enterprises and organizations), open the Group Policy Management Console and create or edit a policy that targets your clients

For unmanaged devices (common for home users), open the Group Policy Editor. This can be accomplished by opening the Start Menu and typing group policy. Select Edit group policy from the results

Using the right-side panel, browse to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Connection Client

From the left-side panel, double-click the policy setting Turn Off UDP On Client and set it to Enabled

Select OK and restart your device(s) to apply the policy setting