XP Service Pack 3 — Remote Desktop Change
Posted on May 13, 2008
7 Comments
If you’re an XP user used to using the /console switch to manage your servers, be aware that going to Service Pack 3 will alter your Remote Desktop options a bit.
Specifically, you’ll now need to use the /admin switch instead.
This makes it very similar to using Remote Desktop with Vista, as I discovered earlier this year when I couldn’t get console access from Vista (the solution was provided in the comments).
For reference, here are the new command line arguments to mstsc (the command line equiv of Remote Desktop Connection):
Tags: remote-desktop, service-pack, tip, vista, XP
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[...] May 15, 2008: If you found this article from a search on XP SP3, please see XP Service Pack 3 — Remote Desktop Change. Regardless, the answer to the following post can be found in the comments: Try /admin instead of [...]
/admin does not open a console window. If you log on to the server manually (console) and lock it. Then use /admin option you have an “admin” session whatever that is but you do not have the locked console session. I have resorted to using the slower remote admin program, this was a nice feature that went away with service pack 3, is there a truly working solution or am I missing something. Thanks, Rick
Hi Rick — in your example, what OS is the server running?
2003 Enterprise Svc Pack 2 and also 2000 Svc Pack 4. I was able to get method I found out there to work by logging on as a local user on the server (non 0 session) then executing mstsc.exe -v:localhost /f /console and that does get you to session 0 but it is quite hokie. I did more research on the matter. It seems MS is trying to tighten security but why would it be enforced at my workstation and not at the server. My RDP does not allow the /console option. I thought to try and reinstall the remote desktop that had this feature. I remember when I started using RDP I did not have the /console feature and a LAN tech here had me run this install process and the /console started working, I cannot seem to find what I installed though.
I was mistaken, only the 2000 server is not working using /admin, the 2003 does allow you to use the /admin option to get to the console session.
Sorry, but it is using XP professional and the upgrade to service pack 3 that lost the feature. thanks, Rick
Copy mstsc.exe and mstscax.dll from PC running windows xp sp2 to your pc with sp3 in C:\windows\system32 folder. I recommand to make the back copy of the files. I have been using this over 4 months and it works fine.