Remote desktop - confused!

[chrbb]

I've had a long day - so be gentle with me.

Because my server is in another part of school and I have to squeeze past lots of stuff to get to it, I use remote desktop to do stuff on the server. (Also lazy!) Now I don't always connect from the same workstation and disconnect.

Silly question time now - do I connect to the same remote session each time or will I have several different instances of administrator logged in at any one time?

[DaveP]

You could leave an application open and then remote logon at another station. If you see the same application running when you logon at the new station this should confirm that you have attached to the same session from elsewhere.

[Heebeejeebee]

If you log in from a different machine your last (open) session should be closed automatically (you normally get a message on screen telling you such) so you're in the same session effectively but from a different machine.

Get in the habit of logging out though or you may come unstuck one day.

HBJB

[Boredguy]

Adding a "/admin" to the Remote Desktop command if you are on a Windows XP SP3 machine or newer will sort it out for you

Will basically give you the console window at the server as your rdp session. It is one of the documented switches for mstsc

[chrbb]

Yes I use /admin, but have occasionally not...... so I think a reboot of the servers, and stick to /admin in future.

[Michael]

When you dial in to a server, by opening Task Manager and navigating to the Users tab, you can switch between sessions.

[RobC]

You can also use Terminal Services Manager (can't remember the 2008 R2 name for it) to see which sessions are active, disconnected, etc and log off or reconnect to any old sessions that are lingering around.

RobC

[dhicks]

do I connect to the same remote session each time or will I have several different instances of administrator logged in at any one time?

You can use VNC instead, then you'll connect to the actual console of the machine.

[AngryTechnician]

You can use VNC instead, then you'll connect to the actual console of the machine.

If you go down this route, be aware that most versions of VNC use comparatively weak password encryption. Remote Desktop is more secure.

[jonnykewell1]

This simple script is helpfull for ending all sessions on the server:

@echo off
@break off

logoff 1 /server:*servername*
logoff 2 /server:*servername*
logoff 3 /server:*servername*