Troubleshooting TS Licensing Installation

Article
07/02/2012

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

You can check the configuration of your Terminal Services license server and identify common licensing problems for a terminal server by using the following:

Review Configuration in the TS Licensing Manager tool
Licensing Diagnosis in the Terminal Services Configuration tool

Review the configuration of your license server

After you install and configure the TS Licensing role service on a computer running Windows Server 2008, you can use Review Configuration in the TS Licensing Manager tool to review the configuration of the license server and to help identify possible TS Licensing configuration problems that would prevent the license server from doing the following:

Being discovered by terminal servers
Issuing Terminal Services client access licenses (TS CALs) to users or devices that are connecting to a terminal server
Tracking and reporting the issuance of TS Per User CALs

Note

Review Configuration is used to identify possible TS Licensing configuration problems on a license server, not configuration problems on a terminal server. To be alerted to possible licensing discovery and configuration issues on a terminal server, use Licensing Diagnosis in the Terminal Services Configuration tool. For information about Licensing Diagnosis, see Diagnose licensing problems on your terminal server.

Important

To use Review Configuration, the license server must be a member of an Active Directory domain.

You can use Review Configuration to do the following:

Check discovery scope settings:
- If the discovery scope for a license server is set to Domain, Review Configuration checks if the license server is installed on a domain controller.
- If the discovery scope for a license server is set to Forest, Review Configuration checks if the license server is published in Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS).
- If the discovery scope for a license server is set to Domain or Forest, Review Configuration checks if the license server is a member of the Terminal Server License Servers group in AD DS.
Change the discovery scope of the license server by clicking Change Scope. For more information, see Change the Discovery Scope of a Terminal Services License Server in the TS Licensing Manager Help in the Windows Server 2008 Technical Library (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=107404).
Find the location of the TS Licensing database.
Check if the License server security group Group Policy setting is enabled and applied to the license server. For more information about the License server security group Group Policy setting, see Control the Issuance of Terminal Services Client Access Licenses (TS CALs) in the TS Licensing Manager Help in the Windows Server 2008 Technical Library (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=107405).

Use the following procedure to review the configuration of a license server by using TS Licensing Manager.

Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, on the license server, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

To review the configuration of a license server by using TS Licensing Manager

Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, point to Terminal Services, and then click TS Licensing Manager.
In the left pane, click All servers. In the right pane, in the Configuration column, you see either OK or Review. Review indicates that there is a possible configuration issue with the license server.
To review the configuration details of a license server, do one of the following:
- Select the license server that you want to review, and then on the Action menu, click Review Configuration.
- Right-click the license server that you want to review, and then click Review Configuration.
- If Review is displayed in the Configuration column for a license server, click Review.
In the Configuration dialog box, a list of messages provides you with information about the configuration of the license server and identifies possible configuration issues.

For certain configuration issues, you can correct the problem from within the Configuration dialog box if you have the appropriate administrative privileges. For example, if the license server is not published in AD DS and you have Enterprise Admins privileges in AD DS, you can click Publish in AD DS to correct the problem.

Diagnose licensing problems on your terminal server

Each user or computing device that connects to a terminal server must have a valid Terminal Services client access license (TS CAL) issued by a Terminal Services license server. A terminal server must be able to discover a Terminal Services license server to request TS CALs for users or computing devices that are connecting to the terminal server.

Terminal Services Configuration for Windows Server 2008 includes the Licensing Diagnosis tool, which provides information to help identify possible licensing problems for the terminal server, including the following:

Determines which license servers the terminal server can discover
Determines whether those license servers have TS CALs available to issue to users or computing devices that are connecting to the terminal server
Tries to identify possible licensing problems and provide resolutions to those problems

Use the following procedure to run the Licensing Diagnosis tool.

Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

To run the Licensing Diagnosis tool

Open Terminal Services Configuration. To open Terminal Services Configuration, click Start, point to Administrative Tools, point to Terminal Services, and then click Terminal Services Configuration.
In the left pane, click Licensing Diagnosis. Licensing Diagnosis automatically runs and tries to discover license servers and identify licensing configuration problems, and then displays the results.

The Licensing Diagnosis results include the following:

Terminal Server Configuration Details, which displays configuration information about the terminal server, including the licensing mode and discovery mode that have been specified for the terminal server.
Licensing Diagnosis Information, which displays any licensing problems that were identified along with suggested resolutions to the problems.
Terminal Services License Server Information, which displays the license servers that were discovered by the terminal server.
License Server Configuration Details, which displays configuration information about a license server, including the type and version of TS CALs installed and available on that license server.

To view the configuration details of a selected license server, the account that you are logged on as needs administrator privileges on the license server. If your account does not have administrator privileges on the license server, you can use Provide Credentials in the Licensing Diagnosis tool to provide credentials that have administrative privileges on the license server.