I have twice seen this issue, you try to log on to a Windows 2003 server remote via RDP and get a black screen with black text – now you can still log on but you can’t read what you write on the logon screen.

The issue appear to be rather trivial to resolve, yet I am still puzzled as to what causes the issue in the first place.  A colleague of mine Anuphol Urailat actually found a MS article on this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/906510/en

The problem is that the “Color” section under “Control Panel” in “.Default user” in the registry is set to “0 0 0” (Black) for everything, you simply export a clean “Color” section from another Windows 2003 box and viola everything is back to working condition.  You can even do the import via Remote Registry edit, so it is rather trivial to resolve.

Before;

After fix;