I have a desktop/laptop pair at home operating x64 Windows 7 (the desktop was upgraded from Windows Vista, works just fine). I remote desktop to them on a daily basis when outside.

In recent weeks, I would occasionally fail to connect to my desktop. It can connect and authenticate fine, but the "configuring remote session" dialog would simply close and not show me the desktop window or any error message.

There is no error event log relating to this on the desktop computer.

Some suggestions call for disabling remote audio, which mine already is, but trying different audio modes did not yield any different result.

I am not too sure if this is related to video card drivers (they do get auto-updated), since remote desktop video is supposed to steer via a virtual device driver? Nonetheless the desktop operates three monitors via an ATI Radeon HD5770 (1 Displayport, 2 DVI). I do not see a real problem with that since I can mostly connect and operate it remotely.

I try to "remote tunnel" via my home laptop but obviously won't work either as the problem lies in the desktop. What other conditions can cause remote desktop to break without error?

UPDATE I came home and still couldn't connect to the desktop until I restarted the entire system.