Why am I unable to connect using Remote Desktop on my Windows 10 computer?

I have two computers that came with Windows 8.1. I recently upgraded them to Windows 10. I've been trying to configure the machines for remote access but am having limited/no luck.

The RDP connection fails when specifying either the hostname or the IP of the target machine.

I have tried the following to attempt to solve the issue:

• Checked that the target PC has Remote Desktop enabled. The Allow this computer to be controlled remotely checkbox under This PC -> Properties -> Remote Settings -> Advanced is indeed checked.

• Disabled Windows Firewall in case this is causing connection issues.

• Use a wired, rather than wireless, connection.

• Verified that both machines could ping each other successfully (they could).

• Verified that Remote Desktop is attempting to listen on port 3389 by checking the registry value at Computer\HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-TCP\PortNumber (this value is indeed correct). As it turns out, Remote Desktop is actually NOT listening on this port (or apparently any port). I was able to find this information by running netstat -a | findstr 3389.

• Toggling the Remote Desktop checkbox (see above) and then restarting, per a suggestion I found using Google. I tried this in various ways, including:

• Disabling Remote Desktop and then restarting. Then enabling Remote Desktop and then restarting.

• Disabling Remote Desktop, then enabling it, then restarting.

  None of these cause Remote Desktop to start listening on this port.

• Putting the two computers in a homegroup together, per another suggestion. After doing this, the two computers share files and other resources.

How can I fix this issue with Remote Desktop and allow the target machine to be connected to remotely?

As you can see, I've tried a lot of things to solve this issue. Hopefully I've missed something that somebody can spot!

Did you add your user to the remote user list?

This PC -> Properties -> Remote Settings -> Advanced -> Select Users ... And select the users.

Also, Did you allow the incoming connections on port 3389 TCP?

Control Panel -> Windows Firewall -> Advanced settings -> Inbound Rules -> New Rule ... And follow the wizard to add the port.

How to add a rule or port to a Windows 10 firewall