Solved Remote Desktop Connection Failure To Cloned PC

Hi,

I am running Windows 11 25H2.

Initially I had two (2) computers in my network, both different make and models, and let's say their computer names are A1 and B1.

I have successfully setup Remote Desktop Connection on both computers and from A1 I am able to remote into B1. Although I don't do it, I have tested and confirmed that I can also remote into A1 from B1.

Then I purchased another "A" computer, as in the exact same brand and model. I did a system image restore from A1 to this new computer, booted (A1 remained powered off), changed the computer name to "A2" and restarted both it and A1.

So now I have A1, A2, and B1 all running on my network:

• As initially, from A1, I can still successfully remote into B1.
• Similarly, I can still successfully remote into A1 from B1.
• From A2, I am also able to successfully remote into B1.
• And I can also successfully remote into A2 from B1.
• What I can't do, however, is remote into A2 from A1 and vice-versa! I get the credentials are incorrect/logon failed error!

Besides changing the computer name after the system image restore, is there something else I need to change? I can get into A1 and A2 from B1, no issues, so Remote Desktop Connection on A1 and A2 are working fine; it's just between A1 and A2 that there's an issue.

I read a post about not changing the computer names after the image restore that will mess up Remote Desktop Connection but changing the name was the first thing I did after I restored the A1 image onto the new computer.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Did you sysprep before cloning?

Here’s a mention of the known issue rollback method


And the SID changing utility

Updated 24H2 to 26100.5074 Now Can't Connect to Other Computer

Thank you, @pseymour!

It appears that I had completely misunderstood that post I read and had associated SID change with computer name change! Your references were extremely helpful and insightful!

So, to answer your question, that means no, I did not run a sysprep; rather, I just imaged the disk and restored. This never resulted in an issue in the past because I only did then when I was replacing my in-warranty Surface machine. So, this is the first time I am truly cloning to have a duplicate system on my network and that explains why I thought computer name change was my biggest concern!

I'm trying that utility now and I'll report back when it's done.

Regardless of the outcome, thanks very much for the helpful information.

No worries. It was relatively recent that this was “enforced,” although it was always a good idea when moving to new hardware, if you plan to keep the old hardware around. If you ditch the old machine, it doesn’t matter.

Ok, success! It worked and based on all the warnings about not to login while it is running, etc., I figured it was going to take some time but it completed in under a minute!

However, it took me a couple of iterations for it to be 100% successful and 100% smooth:

• BitLocker must be decrypted
• My browser favorites were fine (both Edge and Chrome) but in both I lost my extensions
• Microsoft Account/Windows Hello (face, PIN, password) re-setup glitches
• My NAS network-mapped drives remained but didn't work, so they had to be disconnected and re-mapped

Initially, I just did the system image restore onto the new machine, booted, then ran the utility. Although it worked, this is when I ran into the most issues that fix.

After a few trial-and-error iterations, what finally worked best was after the image restore, I booted and corrected all MS Account/Windows Hello login issues. Once all those issues were fixed, then I ran the utility and that's when everything was 100% smooth. Understandably, I had to re-map my network drives but no issues with my browser extensions.

So, in the end, both Copilot and Gemini led me down a rabbit hole with all sorts of "solutions" which never included the mentioning of the duplicate SID as a possible culprit, but it was a human who solved it for me! Thanks again, @pseymour!

Quite welcome, @nuspieds. Your additional information will be helpful for other folks having the same problem, so thank you for that.