It appears that the behavior of the console login from RDTabs has changed in v2.1.23. I have always logged in to the console sessions of my servers with RDTabs, including my Citrix TS, with no adverse effects. Since upgrading to the 2.1.23 version, every time I log in to the Citrix TS console session from RDTabs, the default domain for all logins is changed to the computer instead of the domain, and in turn causes login problems for my users. I have tried forcing the domain selection in the Citrix ICA file, the Terminal Server and Citrix configurations on the server, and in the registry. Changing the registry is the only thing that works, but only until I log in to the console session of the Citrix TS again, at which time the registry values are overwritten and all logins begin defaulting to the computer name instead of the domain again.

Considering that all of the previous versions of RDTabs did not show this behavior, I expect that this is probably a bug. I can't see why it would have been changed on purpose. Does anyone have any insight into this issue?

The only change between .22 and .23 is the drive redirection fix for the Windows 7 RDP client. Considering that only recently the 7 client was pushed via Windows Update, it would not surprise me if this is another unexpected consequence of that update (which is what inspired the .23 release).

Just to rule out that it has anything to do with what I did in .23, can you revert to .22 and see if it is still broken? If it still is, revert to an older release, back when you were sure it worked. If you still have problems with that, it's likely the Windows 7 client. If so, go to a PC without the 7 client update (you might have to spin up an XP or Vista VM and NOT apply updates) and then try .23. If it works then, then we know it's the 7 client.

Out of curiosity, if you supply the domain name in the DOMAIN field in RD Tabs, does it still revert to the local computer name?

To answer your last question first, if I explicitly specify the domain in RDTabs it does still revert to the local computer name. The only thing that seems slightly odd about that to me is when I watch the server logging in, the login window shows the domain, not the local computer name, and the username field shows in the 'domain\user' format. When I look at the DefaultDomainName and DefaultUserName keys in the registry after logging in, the DefaultDomainName is blank and the DefaultUserName is 'domain\user'.

I can certainly try downgrading to .22 and will let you know what I find. Would the Windows 7 RDP client update that you are talking about have been pushed out to XP also? I am running XP SP3.

Yes, Microsoft pushed out the W7 client update to all versions of Windows from XP on, including XP, 2003, 2003 R2, Vista, and 2008. Windows 7 and 2008 R2 already had it built in. RD Tabs uses whatever library is present on your computer, so it will take advantage of whatever version gets upgraded through Microsoft Update. This is a double-edged sword. 🙂 For systems with a client version older than RDP 6.0, the RD Tabs installer will install the RDP 6.0 client. 6.1 and beyond have no installer I can bundle anymore. This is because of how Microsoft is now distributing the client RDP via Windows Update now.

If you see the domain\username in the username field, RD Tabs is "doing its job" so to speak, as that is the normal expected behavior on Microsoft terminal servers. I'm still thinking it may possibly be a W7 client with Citrix server incompatbility. Or maybe just Citrix? Has there been any Citrix updates lately?

Yes, downgrading will help me diagnose. I can confirm that the domain field is working fine in my tests with Microsoft target servers. I don't have a Citrix server to test with.