Power BI Gateway Installation issues

Hi DaleJohnson,

The on-premises data gateway is a machine-wide Windows service, not per-user, so RDS user profiles/UPDs shouldn’t be involved. Use the Standard (enterprise) gateway installer and run it as an administrator. See Microsoft’s install guide: Install an on-premises data gateway.

Verify the service account has “Log on as a service”. By default the service runs as the virtual account NT SERVICE\PBIEgwService. Confirm Group Policy isn’t stripping this right on RDS hosts:

• Open secpol.msc > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment > Log on as a service and ensure NT SERVICE\PBIEgwService is present.
• If your domain GPO overwrites local settings, add it (or switch to a gMSA/domain account) centrally. Docs: Change the on-premises data gateway service account.
  Tip: If you do change accounts, do it in the Gateway app, not just services.msc, so permissions are applied correctly.

Start the service and check Event Viewer.

• Start: services.msc > On-premises data gateway service (PBIEgwService).
• Event logs: Event Viewer > Applications and Services Logs > On-premises data gateway service for precise startup errors. Microsoft’s troubleshooting article shows where to look and how to export logs: Troubleshoot the on-premises data gateway.

Best practice (optional but recommended): Consider hosting the gateway on a dedicated utility VM instead of an RDS session host to avoid contention and GPO/profile hardening side-effects. Background and guidance: RADACAD gateway overview and Using the gateway with Fabric.

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