You receive a "The server may be too busy" error message when you try to connect to Terminal Services on a Small Business Server 2000 computer (329155)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Small Business Server 2000
This article was previously published under Q329155
IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

SYMPTOMS

When you try to connect to Terminal Services on a Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) 2000 computer, you may receive the following error message:
The client could not connect to Terminal Server. The server may be too busy. Please try connecting later.

CAUSE

This error may occur if another process that is running on the SBS 2000 computer starts using TCP port 3389 before the Terminal Services service starts. By default, TCP port 3389 is the port that Terminal Services uses for its connections. If another process is using this port, terminal server connections may fail.

The process that most frequently causes this problem is the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service (Mad.exe). That is because Microsoft Exchange uses remote procedure call (RPC) dynamic port allocation. During RPC dynamic port allocation, the RPC service assigns an RPC program a random port number that is more than 1024. Occasionally, RPC may assign TCP port 3389 to a program such as the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service.

WORKAROUND

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To work around this problem, modify the registry to exclude TCP port 3389 from the RPC port range. To do this, follow these steps:
  1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe). You cannot use the Regedit.exe version of Registry Editor to complete these steps because you must create a multi-string registry value.
  2. Locate and then click to select the following registry sukey:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Rpc

  3. In the RPC subkey, add a new subkey, and then name it Internet.
  4. In the Internet subkey, add the following values:
  • Value Name: Ports
    Data Type: REG_MULTI_SZ
    Data: 3389
  • Value Name: PortsInternetAvailable
    Data Type: REG_SZ
    Data: N
  • Value Name: UseInternetPorts
    Data Type: REG_SZ
    Data: Y
Note You must restart the server for these changes to take effect.

For additional information about how to configure RPC port ranges, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

154596 How to configure RPC dynamic port allocation to work with firewalls

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:1/4/2005
Keywords:kberrmsg kbpending kbprb KB329155
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