Using Remote Desktop, connect to a Windows 7 domain user account without first logging on locally?

Posted by Robert S Ciaccio on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Robert S Ciaccio
Published on 2010-08-04T20:18:24Z Indexed on 2012/03/19 2:08 UTC
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I have a dell laptop (henceforth we'll call this the server) running Windows 7 Enterprise. The server is part of my company's domain. My primary user account is a domain account.

When I am at home and not connected to the domain, I prefer to connect to the server using Remote Desktop Connection from my MacBook Pro (we'll call this the client). The problem is, that if I do not physically login to the server, I am unable to connect to it using RDC from the client.

I have a local administrator account on the server, and connecting to it via RDC works just fine.

I had a feeling that the Mac RDC application was not giving me the full story, so I attempted the same procedure from a Windows 7 client. When trying to login, I get this message:

An authentication error has occured. The local security authority cannot be contacted.

So basically, If I logon to the server physically with my domain user and lock the computer, I can then successfully logon from the client. Otherwise, I am unable to connect.

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