Remote Desktop mstsc.exe slow will not start windows 7

Had a painful problem today with the mstsc.exe application in Windows 7 64 Bit Ultimate today.

An otherwise happy install suddenly failing to start, or if is started it would be very slow.

Once started, it would not close from the task manager, even if I killed the process with the end process.

Initially

I suspected that it was possibly a virus etc. However I found that there are a lot of people on the net with this exact problem.

I then set about a solution, and figured on out myself, that involves replacing some of the files use by the MSTSC.EXE application.

Basically there are 4 files that I replaced with the same version from another computer that was functional and healthy. They are:

c:\windows\system32\

MSTSCAX.dll

MSTSC.exe

c:\windows\system32\EN-US\

MSTSCAX.dll.mui

MSTSC.exe.mui

I would create a .zip copy for download except I fear giving out some stored connection settings in the files I already have. So sorry, you will have to find your own backup files.

 

The Bitch of it

The annoying problem is that you cannot just copy the 4 files into the two folder locations as Windows 7 in all it’s wisdom will not let you copy files there, as you are not the “Trusted Installer”.

You might be like me, Administrator and God of your computer that at any time can take to it with a hammer and replace it with a Mac, but Windows 7 knows best… so let’s show you what you have to do to hack that crap!

 

Give Permissions

First, go to the folder or set of files that you need to change permissions for, right-click on them and choose Properties.

Next click on the Security tab and then click on the Advanced button at the bottom:

Next click on the Owner tab and you’ll now see that the current owner is TrustedInstaller.

Now click on the Edit button and choose who you would like to change the owner to, either your account or the Administrators. If your account is an Administrator account, I would suggest just picking Administrators.

You can also check off Replace owner on sub containers and objects if you need to delete more than one file in a folder. Go ahead and click OK. Now you will see that the Current owner is the account you picked.

Click OK until you have closed all properties windows and are back to the Windows Explorer screen. Then right-click on the folder or file again and choose Properties again.

Now click on the Security tab again, but instead of clicking on Advanced, you need to click the Edit button.

Now click on the user name in the list that you want to change the permissions for, which should be the same as who you changed the current owner too. If the user name is not in the list, click Add, type in the name and click OK.

Since I had changed the current owner to Administrators, I clicked on Administrators here and then clicked on the check box next to Full Control. When you do that, all the other boxes get checked too.

Click OK once and then click OK one more time to get back to Windows Explorer. Now you can replace those files without any UAC messages telling you that you can’t! Enjoy!