Event ID 1128 and 1129: the RDS licensing grace period has run out, or is about to

Fix it now

Event 1128 says the RD Licensing grace period has expired and the Session Host has not registered with a licence server holding installed licences. Event 1129 is the warning that it is about to. A Session Host runs for 120 days without a licence server; after that it refuses sessions.

$obj = gwmi -namespace "Root/CIMV2/TerminalServices" Win32_TerminalServiceSetting
$obj.GetGracePeriodDays()
$obj.GetSpecifiedLicenseServerList()
$obj.LicensingType

1. Read the grace period days first. If you are seeing 1129 rather than 1128 you still have time, and that changes how urgently you work.
2. On the Session Host open Server Manager, Remote Desktop Services, Overview and run the RD Licensing Diagnoser. It names the missing piece in one line.
3. If there is no licence server, add the Remote Desktop Licensing role service to a server, then Server Manager, Tools, Remote Desktop Services, Remote Desktop Licensing Manager, and Action, Activate Server.
4. Install the CALs you bought: Action, Install Licenses, then choose the licence programme and enter the agreement or licence number.
5. Point the host at the server: Set-RDLicenseConfiguration -LicenseServer lic.contoso.local -Mode PerDevice -ConnectionBroker cb.contoso.local, or set the two Licensing policies and run gpupdate /force.

Check the licence server’s Windows Server version before you buy. CALs install only on a licence server running the same version or later.

If the Diagnoser reports no issues and users can connect, you are done. If not, the next section explains what the host is actually waiting for.

Why it happens

A newly built RD Session Host accepts connections for 120 days with no licence server and no CALs at all. That is a grace period, not a licence, and Microsoft is explicit about what happens when it ends: clients must have a valid RDS CAL issued by a licence server before they can sign in to a remote session. Users who connected yesterday are refused today, and nothing about the server has changed.

The two events tell you where in that window you are, and they are not the same event twice. Event 1128 reads “The RD Licensing grace period has expired and the service has not registered with a license server with installed licenses”. Event 1129 reads “The RD Licensing grace period is about to expire on <date>” with the same explanation following. Both are written by Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-RemoteConnectionManager, and both note that a Session Host can operate without a licence server for 120 days after initial start up.

So 1129 is a warning with a date on it. If that is what your log shows, you have a planning problem rather than an outage, and the date tells you how long you have to solve it. 1128 means the window has closed.

Two licence-server events complete the picture, and they explain why a deployment with a licence server can still fail. Event 22 says the licence server has no RDS CALs installed and registered with the Microsoft Clearinghouse for that product, so it cannot issue CALs of that type to the Session Host. Event 26 says all available CALs of that type for that product have been removed and must be re-registered through RD Licensing Manager. Both are on the licence server, in the TerminalServices-Licensing log, and both mean the same practical thing: the server exists but has nothing to hand out.

Full reference

Reading the grace period

wmic /namespace:\\root\CIMV2\TerminalServices PATH Win32_TerminalServiceSetting WHERE (__CLASS !="") CALL GetGracePeriodDays

This is the number that decides how you handle the ticket. Days remaining means you are looking at Event 1129 and you can plan the purchase properly. Zero means Event 1128, and users are already being refused.

Which event is on which machine

Where the configuration actually lives

LicensingMode is 2 for Per Device and 4 for Per User. The precedence order is domain Group Policy, then local policy, then the console setting, which is why a change made in the console can appear to do nothing on a host inside a GPO scope.

Choosing between User and Device CALs

Version rules that decide what you can buy

• RDS CALs must be compatible with the Windows Server version the user or device connects to. Later CALs work against earlier Session Hosts; earlier CALs do not work against later ones.
• The licence server itself must run the same version of Windows Server as the CALs, or later. Windows Server 2025 CALs need a Windows Server 2025 licence server.
• Check the licence server’s version before ordering. This is the rule that turns a purchase into an upgrade project, and finding out afterwards is expensive.
• RDS CALs sit on top of Windows Server CALs. They do not replace them.

Every code this article covers

Confirm the fix worked

1. GetGracePeriodDays() is no longer counting down towards zero on the Session Host, because the host is now getting CALs.
2. The RD Licensing Diagnoser on the Session Host reports no issues.
3. Remote Desktop Licensing Manager shows the CAL packs installed and the issued count rising as users connect.
4. The licensing mode on the host matches the CAL type installed on the server.
5. A test user connects and stays connected, and Event 1128 stops recurring.

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