How to Change the Listening Port in the Windows Terminal Server Web Client

By default, Windows Terminal Server uses TCP port 3389 for client connections. As a security option, you may want to change this port.

This article describes how to change the default listening port in the Terminal Server Web Client.

To change the Terminal Server listening port in the Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 1 (or later) and Windows Server 2003 clients, follow these steps:

1. Locate the Default.htm file in the %system root%\Web\TsWeb folder.
2. Open Default.htm in Notepad or in another text editor.
3. Locate the entries that start with "MsRdpClient.AdvancedSettings2".
4. Add the following line after these entries
   MsRdpClient.AdvancedSettings2.RDPPort = xxxx
   where xxxx is the new port.

To make sure that you can connect with the new setting, append the port number to that of the published URL (that is, www.xxx.xxx.xxx:PortNumber).

NOTE: Before SP1 the Windows XP client used the Connect.asp file, not Default.htm, for these settings. You can make the change described in step 4 to Connect.asp, but Microsoft recommends that instead you upgrade the Terminal Services Web client as described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article: For additional information about how to change the default listening port in Terminal Server, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: