Microsoft has fixed a known issue that causes the Remote Desktop app to freeze on Windows 11 systems after installing the Windows 11 2022 Update.
According to the company, home users are unlikely to experience any issues while using the app, as it uses a connection process that is different from that of enterprise devices known to be affected by this particular issue.
“After installing Windows 11, version 22H2 (also called Windows 11 2022 Update), the Windows Remote Desktop application may become unresponsive when connecting through a Remote Desktop gateway or Remote Desktop Connection Broker,” explains Redmond on The Windows Health Dashboard post published in November .
“An example of this connection scenario is when connecting to a Remote Desktop Services collection. RemoteApp and Desktop Connections are ways this connection is achieved.”
Microsoft has fixed this in the KB5022360 cumulative preview update that was released earlier this week on Thursday.
Since preview updates do not contain security fixes, they are optional and will not be installed automatically. Users will be prompted to click the ‘Download and Install’ button before Windows 11 installs the update, or they can install it manually from the Microsoft Update Catalog.
As BleepingComputer reported, Microsoft began investigating this known issue in late September after a flood of reports from administrators and home users saying that the Windows 11 22H2 update causes Remote Desktop clients to fail to connect, freeze unexpectedly, or accidentally disconnect.
After installing the update, customers have also reported experiencing Remote Desktop Services errors, frequent remote desktop interruptions, remote virtual desktop not working, and Remote Desktop published apps issues.
Solution is also available
Affected customers who do not want to install this week’s preview update and want to wait for next month’s Patch Tuesday cumulative updates that will roll out to all users can work around the Remote Desktop app freezing issue by ending the process via Windows Task Manager.
To do so, go through the following steps:
- Press and hold the Ctrl, Shift and Esc keys on your keyboard.
- Select Processes from the menu on the left
- Find the mstsc.exe process in the list that appears
- Right-click the process name and select End Task
Windows administrators can also resolve this known issue by configuring a special Group Policy on affected endpoints.
They must go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Connection Client and enable the “Turn off UDP on client” option using the Group Policy Management Console (managed devices) or Group Policy Editor (non-managed devices).
“Remote Desktop sessions connecting via wide-area network (WAN) may experience poor performance after applying the fix below,” Microsoft warned.
“Setting this policy will also disable User Datagram Protocol (UDP) for all Remote Desktop connections from the device. We strongly recommend that this Group Policy be changed when this issue is resolved in a future Windows update.”
