Windows Server 2019/2022: Terminal Server / RDS with laggy or freezing Taskbar

Windows Server 2019/2022: Terminal Server / RDS with laggy or freezing Taskbar

One of my clients had newly installed RDS Windows Server 2022 with latest updates 03/2023 and had very big issues with laggy or freezing Taskbar. The issue was for all users, which were connected to the RDS server. The customer not using Microsoft Teams on RDS host. 

When users works on the RDS host, the task bar freeze for 10-20 seconds, but opened programs can still operated. When attempting to click on the taskbar, for example to Start or run taksmanager, we are noticing that there is a delay between 10-30 seconds in all sessions including local users/admin and domain users/admin. 

Causes and workaround:

The explorer.exe randomly sitting at 15-25% of CPU for some users, when you restart the explorer.exe – it would fix temporarily but another user has same issue. 

1. The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Software\Microsoft\TIP\TestResults reg key when I exported it was 64 MB in size! That shows how massive it was.
2. Disabled the TabletInputService service (Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service)
3. Took ownership of C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ink\TabTip32.exe and renamed it (to prevent it from starting up and adding to TestResults key)
4. Took ownership of C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ink\TabTip.exe and renamed it (to prevent it from starting up and adding to TestResults key)
5. Remove HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Software\Microsoft\TIP\TestResults key.

There is script: 

taskkill /f /IM tabtip.exe
taskkill /f /IM tabtip32.exe

takeown /F „C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ink\tabtip.exe“
cacls „C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ink\tabtip.exe“ /T /E /P Administrators:F
cacls „C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ink\tabtip.exe“ /T /E /P SYSTEM:F
ren „C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ink\tabtip.exe“ tabtip.exe.old

takeown /F „C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\Ink\tabtip32.exe“
cacls „C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\Ink\tabtip32.exe“ /T /E /P Administrators:F
cacls „C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\Ink\tabtip32.exe“ /T /E /P SYSTEM:F
ren „C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\Ink\tabtip32.exe“ tabtip32.exe.old

Reg Delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Software\Microsoft\TIP\TestResults\ /f

Thats all 🙂