Windows Server 2003-based or Windows 2000-based terminal servers do not automatically discover a license server that is designated as an enterprise license server

Your Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based or Microsoft Windows 2000-based terminal servers do not automatically discover a license server that is designated as an enterprise license server.

Note Because of this problem, your Remote Desktop clients may not be able to connect to the terminal servers in a remote site.

This problem may occur if both of the following conditions are true:

• Your terminal servers are in a different site or domain from the licensing server.
• You have not modified the registry to point to a specific license server.

When a terminal server searches for license servers in remote sites by using a global catalog server, the terminal server incorrectly searches for an object that is named TS-Enterprise-LicenseServer. The correct object is TS-Enterprise-License-Server.

This problem occurs because of an error in the search filter that is used in the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) query of the global catalog server. This filter is the fallback mechanism when a terminal server does not find a license server.

Warning If you use the ADSI Edit snap-in, the LDP utility, or any other LDAP version 3 client, and you incorrectly modify the attributes of Active Directory objects, you can cause serious problems. These problems may require you to reinstall Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, or both Windows and Exchange. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that occur if you incorrectly modify Active Directory object attributes can be solved. Modify these attributes at your own risk.

To work around this issue, create an Active Directory object in the site container for the site where the license server resides. Name the object TS-Enterprise-LicenseServer. Alternatively, copy the existing TS-Enterprise-License-Server object to all the remote sites.

You can create a new Active Directory object by using the ADSI Edit snap-in or a similar LDAP client program.

Note You have to add the Active Directory object only to an existing license server.

To create a new Active Directory object, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type adsiedit.msc, and then click OK.
2. Expand Configuration, expand CN=Configuration, DC=domain, DC=com, and then expand CN=Sites.
3. Click the container name for the site where the TS-Enterprise-License-Server object is located. For example, click CN=Default-First-Site-Name. (The terminal server is used in the Default-First-Site-Name site without license servers.)
4. In the right pane, create a new object, Select licensingSiteSettings and then the object that is named CN=TS-Enterprise-LicenseServer.
5. Add the distinguished name of the license server in the SiteServer property of the following newly created object:
   CN=TS-Enterprise-License-Server,CN=site,CN=sites,CN=configuration,DC=domain,DC=com
6. Close the ADSI Edit snap-in.

When site replication has completed, the terminal servers will automatically locate the license server in the remote site.

To resolve this problem, install Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 or Windows Server 2008.

For more information about how to obtain the latest service pack for Windows Server 2003, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Steps to reproduce the problem

1. Create separate Active Directory sites. Name them site A and site B.
2. In site A, install and designate a license server as an enterprise license server.
3. In site B, install a member server, and then install Terminal Services.
4. Start the Terminal Server Licensing tool on the member server.

The Terminal Server Licensing tool on the member server cannot find the license server in the remote site. The member server will log an event that indicates that the member server cannot locate a license server.

Note If the grace period has expired, clients will not be able to connect to terminal servers. (The grace period is the time that a terminal server enables unlimited connections without communicating with a license server.)

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.