Technology Insights

Xbox 360: Your NAT Type Is Moderate, Configure Port Forwarding On Your Router

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If you have an Xbox 360 connected to the Internet (Xbox Live) on your LAN (Local Area Network) then you have at one point or another probably seen an error message stating something similar to “Your NAT type is Moderate”. This message was more than likely discovered while troubleshooting your Xbox 360’s connection over your home network to Xbox Live. Some of the problems associated with the “Your NAT type is Moderate” include but are not limited to problems connecting to Xbox Live online games, issues joining Xbox 360 Party Chats via Xbox Live, other Xbox Live users having problems connecting to your Xbox 360 when you are hosting an online multiplayer game, and almost any other scenario where you are attempting to communicate with other Xbox Live users from the Xbox 360 connected to your Local Area Network.

Technology Insights

Connect To Windows Remote Desktop Using A Different Port Than TCP RDP Port 3389

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There are numerous reasons that you may either want to connect to Windows Remote Desktop on a different port or have Remote Desktop listen on a different port. The primary reason I wanted to configure this was my ISP does network scans every couple of months and if you have external ports listening they will suspend your service in an attempt to both cut down on viruses, spam, and to get you to upgrade your service to a business account that allows you to run servers. I wanted to be able to connect to a Windows Vista box at my house remotely and one of the ports included in my ISP’s scan list is the RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) TCP port 3389. To get around this you can either configure RDP to run on a different port and simply use your router to directly NAT through the new port or I suggest you simply using Port Forward on your router to route another port from the external IP address to the TCP RDP port 3389 on the Windows computer running Remote Desktop. Below I describe connecting to a port other than the default TCP port 3389 from the Remote Desktop client.