Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Remote desk top to win2k3 console session (shadow mode - without disabling local user)

Typically after performing an mstsc remote desktop  to a windows 2003 server machine, you will want to open the terminal services manager and right click connect to the console session already running locally on the computer.

When you try to do that you will get a message:
"Can't remote control session(ID 0) control is disabled on that session"

To be able to connect to the console session of a windows 2003, and even share the screen with the local user without disconnecting them, you need to perform the following procedure:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278845 (see the "how to shadow the console session" part)

The fast answer is to perform this on the remote desktop session:
  1. Open the Group Policy snap-in (Gpedit.msc).
  2. In the left pane, under the Computer Configuration branch, expand the Administrative Templates branch.
  3. Expand the Windows Components branch.
  4. Click the Terminal Services folder.
  5. In the right pane, double-click Sets rules for remote control of Terminal Services user sessions.
  6. On the Setting tab, click Enabled.
  7. In the Options box, click Full Control without users' permission, and then click OK
And after that open a command prompt and type:
shadow 0