Remote Desktop connection drops with Windows 7 RDP client

[dingbat]

I'm running VirtualBox in XP. (guest OS is Xubuntu, but that shouldn't matter) I connect to it over a LAN from another computer, running Windows 7 RC, using the Remote Desktop client. The connection gets randomly dropped. Sometimes it lasts 3 seconds, other times several minutes.

There are no errors in the VirtualBox log, it just says the connection was closed. On the client side, the following error pops up: "This computer can't connect to the remote computer. The connection was lost due to a network error..."

VNC, among other things, works fine between the XP and Win 7 machines, so there's nothing wrong with the connection. I tried connecting from another XP machine and it appeared to work fine. Also, I use port 8000, so there shouldn't be a conflict with the port already used by Windows. I wonder if Microsoft's enhancements to RDP7 messed something up? Anyone else experiencing this? Are there any other good RDP clients for Windows?

[Perryg]

Network problems can usually be tracked back to the virtual network adapter.
Try setting the guest to use the IntelPro/1000 T server adapter and see if it works better for you.

[chronoboy]

I have either the same or similar issue with the Windows 7 rdesktop client.

In VirtualBox 2.2.4, I set it to accept remote RDP connections to the guest via the standard port. I can connect perfectly fine from the Linux box using the rdesktop client which comes with Debian etch. However, if I attempt to connect to it from my Windows 7 laptop remotely, entering in my Linux boxes DNS name, it provides me with an error message saying it cannot connect at all. My Linux box is on a private network and iptables is not in use or insmod'd into the kernel at all, so the port is not being blocked.

I am soon upgrading my Debian to Lenny w/ VirtualBox 3.0.2 soon, and will let you know if Windows 7 rdesktop client still complains and the exact error message as well. Also the Windows install package of VirtualBox does not come with the vbox-rdesktop client... I was going to use this as an alternative when connecting using my laptop, however this is not possible at the moment.

[Perryg]

I just tested the RDP client of Win7RC as guest.
Opened a connection to Ubuntu 9.04 server (no desktop) While I did not experience any dropouts I did notice that both cores of the CPU went to max and pretty much stayed there and the data transfer to a terminal window had the net bandwidth maxed out as well.
None to impressive. I can VNC and RDP from Vista little to no CPU and very low bandwidth as well as other Linux and Windows XP clients. I suspect that this may have something to do with your experience as well.