Check in the Services applet if the Startup type of the service "Terminal Services" is set to Automatic. If it is set to Manual then change it to Automatic.
In explanation, I think that in Windows XP Embedded this service is by default configured to start on demand, started by winlogon.exe after a delay (about 1 minute I think). It is impossible to change this delay, but one can change the startup type to Automatic, which will then make Remote Desktop come up faster, but slightly slow down the overall boot time.
If for some reason you don't have access to the Services applet, the same manipulation can be done via regedit :
Open the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TermService
and change the value of the Start
item from "3" to "2" and reboot.
Another hypothesis : The logged user is being prompted for confirmation.
The delay you are experiencing is then the time given to the logged user to confirm or cancel the automatic logoff of his session.
This can be changed in the Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) under:
Administrative Templates / Windows components / Terminal Services.
Double-click Set rules of remote control of remote desktop services and choose the Option of Full control without user's permission for the logged user not to be prompted for confirmation. I suggest also to reboot.
If you don't have that policy in XPE, it is also found in the registry at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services
as a DWORD key named Shadow
, where value 2 means "Full Control without user's permission".