I know it's a popular topic, but my situation seems slightly unusual, if only for the reason that what seems to work for everyone else does not work for me!

I want to use RDC to connect to a workstation on my company's private LAN. I am using RDC Client 6.x on WinXP Pro SP3. Server is Win2k. Remote workstation is WinXP Pro SP3.

I am able to RDC to the server by connecting to the WAN IP and everything works as expected.

I am also able, from that server's desktop, to properly RDC to the workstation in question, so I think the workstation is correctly RDC-enabled. (And user acct. in question is authorized to RDC-connect.)

What I am hoping to be able to do is, in my remote client's RDC "Computer Name" box, be able to type [wan IP]:[workstation RDP port], and have it connect directly to the workstation. It doesn't work, stating "This computer cannot connect to the remote computer. Try connecting again. If the problem continues, contact the owner of the remote computer or your network administrator."

I think I have performed almost this exact scenario before, and it worked. In that case though, the remote client was a different computer, possibly with a different version of RDC Client on it. Unfortunately I cannot access that workstation or reference its configuration at this time.

(I see a lot of examples on the WWW using the [ip]:[port] format to specify computer to connect to, but have yet to see any that aren't connecting to an internal IP via this method.)

I have followed the MS instructions for how to edit the registry to change the RDP listen port on the remote host workstation, as this seems to be the means of addressing multiple workstations on a LAN behind a single WAN IP. The remote host workstation in question should be configured properly.

I am familiar with port forwarding and have read explanations of the proper router configuration here (http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/RemoteDesktop/Multiple_PC_RD.html) and elsewhere. Also, I can see remnants of configuration made by a previous administrator and my port forwarding settings conform to the preexisting ones. It seems the router is configured properly.

Yet... it does not work!

I would appreciate any and all fix info, or tips on where to begin troubleshooting this -- isolating the problem, etc.

Trying to get this working quickly, as CEO is leaving town on Thursday and wants this access enabled at his destination. Right now I'm going to have to give him the "RDC to server then RDC to workstation solution", and I would really prefer a simpler alternative.

Thank you!

(Sorry for "cross post" to ms.public.windowsxp.work_remotely, but I need a quicker-than-ususal response.)

Solved.

Remote host workstation had to be rebooted for registry edit of RDP listen port to take effect.

MS "help and support" mentions nothing about that trivial requirement, of course.

The clue was when netstat revealed that there was no TCP connection listening on my newly defined, nonstandard port.