Forum Discussion
Windows Server 2025 Standard - failing to load sign in screen
Hello all
Has anyone come across an issue with login into their Win Svr 2025 Standard via the GUI or RDP?
Had a good google and can't see much of info out there but since last week I lost the ability to RDP or even locally sign into my server running Hyper-V, VMs work fine. When connecting via RDP the session is initiated - get past credential prompt and cert warning but never gets to establish the session. Since the server is hosted on prem, I was able to pop down to the comms room but when I tried to login via GUI after hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del loading screen comes up but never follows through to display username and password textboxes. Since this is a production system I can't just reboot the whole lot.
In the meantime, I've tried restarting both WinLogon.exe and LogonUI.exe processes via CIMSession both were showing twice and after terminating each the number of processes come down to 1 but still no joy signing in.
Any ideas community?
New to the community so apologies in advance if I posted in the wrong place.
Best wishes
Michal
4 Replies
Over the weekend I got the servers restarted and the good news is that has resolved the login screen loading issues. KB5129235 has been applied, via the two step process for those that end up applying this it took about 30 min including a post update restart of the OS.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/servicing/os/windows-server/2026/09/kb5129235-windows-server-2025-update
Hello CLSGPod156 ,
I'm glad to hear that. If you encounter a similar situation again and need to resolve it without restarting the server, you can use the following method:
Open CMD or PowerShell on your computer using an account with the necessary permissions on the server:
1. List the sessions on the server: qwinsta /server:ServerHostname
2. Find the session ID for the relevant user. For example, if the ID is 5, reset the session:
rwinsta 5 /server:ServerHostname (Replace "ServerHostname" with your actual server name and "5" with the relevant session ID). Then, reconnect via RDP.
If the solutions helped, would you mark it as solved?
Hello CLSGPod156 ,
Your symptoms (RDP session initiates but never completes, server hangs at "Please wait for the Remote Desktop Configuration") closely match a known issue caused by September 2026 Windows security updates (KB5122871 for Windows Server 2025).
Microsoft confirmed this update can destabilize Remote Desktop Services (RDS), causing:
- RDP connections to fail or hang at "Connecting" or "Welcome".
- Servers to hang at "Please wait for the Remote Desktop Configuration".
- Management tools like MMC and File Explorer to become unresponsive.
Microsoft released an out-of-band (OOB) update specifically to resolve this:
Windows Server 2025: KB5129235
Since you can't currently log in, you'll need to access the server through an alternative method (like your Hyper-V host console or IPMI) to install this update.
If the solution helped, would you mark it as solved?
Hello hasanemresatilmis
Indeed, this could be the root cause but there is no mention of KB5122871 affecting local login. This is a bare metal install hosting the Hypervisor, I'm trying figure out a way to actually allow me to log into the system. This is a Dell PowerEdge server with iDRAC configured to allow remote access via Virtual Console but no joy getting in that way either.
Thanks for your input, when I get into the server I will definitely apply KB5129235 but until then I'm still trying to figure out a way to get the login screen working.
