Windows – Remote desktop authentication fails from one client, but not from another

authenticationremote desktopvpnwindows 10windows 7

I've been reliably using remote desktop from my Win 10 home machine (VPN using Dual Authentication) to my Windows 10 office machine for months (COVID work from home, very restricted environment at work). All of a sudden, I'm getting a message:

Authentication error has occurred. The Local Security Authority cannot
be contacted. Remote computer xxxxxxxxxxx This could be due to an
expired password . Please update your password if it has expired

I hauled my butt to work, after getting clearance to do so, rebooted, made sure my password was current — and it was. Nothing odd I could find on the host machine.

No love trying to RDP in. My credentials are correct, as when I use a wrong password, I get a simple authentication error.

Searching out the error suggests a bunch of host-side fixes, so just for giggles, I tried RD-ing in from a Win 7 laptop, and it worked like a charm — no issues. This leads me to wanting to handle this as a client-side issue. The only thing I could think of was a difference in local resource handling, but disabling local resources didn't help it.

I'm sort of at a loss for ideas. I suppose next steps would be to try a third party client, or somehow repairing the windows client, but wanted to ask about the possibility that this could even be a VPN issue (both client machines using anyconnect, 4.6.01103). I'd like to avoid working on the host, if at all possible.

Update: In response to the great suggestion that a credential cache was doing me in, I created another account on the client machine, and used that account to remote desktop in. Same error.

Best Answer

It's possible Windows is caching some credentials at some level you're not aware of (TERMSRV for example), and the cache has become corrupted.

You can see which credentials are cached using Credential Manager (Control Panel\User Accounts\Credential Manager). Here you can examine each of the cached credentials in detail, and edit or delete them as required.

Before embarking on the above, I'd suggest creating a temporary second local account for yourself on your computer, and trying out the RDP while logged on to the new account. If this succeeds, you will have isolated the problem to your user profile and you can then check the credential caching and also anything else in your user profile you suspect may be the cause.

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