JSI Tip 9405. Your terminal server does NOT automatically discover your enterprise license server?

Your Windows Server 2003 terminal server, or Windows 2000 terminal server, does NOT automatically discover an enterprise license server, preventing your Remote Desktop clients from connecting to the terminal servers in a remote site.

The above problem may occur if if your terminal server is in a different site, or domain, from the licensing server and you have NOT modified the registry to point to a specific license server.

NOTE: See How do I select a preferred Windows 2000 Terminal Services license server in a domain or site?

NOTE: See How do I select a preferred Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services license server in a domain or site?

NOTE: When a terminal server uses a global catalog server to search for a license server in a remote site,
it improperly searches for an Active Directory object named TS-Enterprise-LicenseServer instead of TS-Enterprise-License-Server.

To workaround this problem:

1. Start / Run / adsiedit.msc / OK.

2. Expand Configuration.

3. Expand CN=Configuration,DC=Yourcorp,DC=domain,DC=com, and then expand CN=Sites.

4. Select the container for the site, like CN=Default-First-Site-Name, where the TS-Enterprise-License-Server object is located.

5. Create a new object in the right-hand pane named CN=TS-Enterprise-LicenseServer.

6. Add the distinguished name of the license server in the SiteServer property of the newly created object:

CN=TS-Enterprise-License-Server,CN=site,CN=sites,CN=configuration,DC=domain,DC=com.

7. Close ADSI Edit.

After site replication, the terminal servers will automatically locate the remote license server.