So one day I need to remote into my home server from the other room and could not get in. I tried logging in from both a desktop and laptop and got nothing more than an obscure network error.

I searched google thinking that this was a pretty common problem (it is) and that there would be a fairly standard fix (there isn’t). I finally gave up and scoured the event logs, finding this little piece of errata:

The RDP protocol component "DATA ENCRYPTION" detected an error in the protocol stream and has disconnected the client.

And after dropping that into google I found this fix:

Click start—>Run type regedit click ok

Locate and then click the following registry subkey

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\TermService\Parameters
Under this registry subkey, delete the following values

• Certificate
• X509 Certificate
• X509 Certificate ID

Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the server.

I’m not sure what the problem was but I’m now able to connect to the server via remote desktop.