Remote Desktop Connection Sessions and Logged in Users

Question

I have two computers with Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Edition and am wanting to be able to log in to my account from each computer on each computer when I'm at the other computer. The problem I'm having is that when I try to connect to my computer at my grandparents from my computer at home, and my grandfather is using it, Remote Desktop Connection displays a message that a user is already logged on and that he will be disconnected if I connect. I need to be able to use Remote Desktop even if users are already logged in without logging them out. Is this possible? I mean if you can "Switch Users" and have more than one user logged in locally, why can't or how do I do the same remotely? I search around and found hacks about multiple concurrent Remote Desktop sessions but I need the same to apply to locally logged in users as well. If this is a limitation of Windows7 I seriously wonder why I always spend the extra money for the Ultimate Edition if it still has all these Home edition limitations and crippled features...

Answer 1

By design Remote Desktop on a workstation will only allow one user at a time to use the desktop. See this KB article for an explanation.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/280828

If your at home and want to login to the PC at the remote site and a user is logged in they will be disconnected (NOT logged off) meaning their session is still active in background and they will not lose any data, etc.

If you need to do a help desk type function, ie. allow the remote user to see what our doing on their desktop while you help them, you might look at Remote Assistance (built-in to the OS) or Virtual Network Computing (VNC) or TeamViewer. Personally I recommend and use TeamViewer for this type of function, ie. I support a couple of my sister-in-laws remotely.

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MS-MVP Windows Desktop Experience, "When all else fails, read the instructions"

Answer 2

Ok, solved my own problem for those intereseted.

Log in as the remote(host)pc account then also use the NAME of the remote(host) PC

Like:       RemoteHost\Remote Host

It's the space that got me and the NAME of the pc.

Everything seems to work like XP did.

I'll take the dumba** award now.

Answer 3

I think I have a similar issue...

Using XP Pro (as a client) I could remote desktop into another XP Pro machine (the host) using the same account name and login password as the host.

And the host would already be logged in under the same user name and password.

I could see everything that was running on the host machine under the locally already logged in account.

Now when I logged in remotely, the user would immediately see a log in screen and be unable to see or interact with my Remote Desktop session.

This worked fine for our uses.

Now with Windows 7 Pro, the only way I can log in period is to create a second account and password and log into that second account.

The problem is that I need to see the account that is already logged in to perform any maintenance or see what errors the programs may have had in the account that is already

logged in.

Any way around this in Windows 7 Pro ???   

Or am I missing a vital setting here?

I'm greatly missing he way it wonderfully worked in XP Pro.

As noted earlier...

If you need to do a help desk type function, ie. allow the remote user to see what our doing on their desktop while you help them, you might look at Remote Assistance (built-in to the OS) or Virtual Network Computing (VNC) or TeamViewer. Personally I recommend and use TeamViewer for this type of function, ie. I support a couple of my sister-in-laws remotely.

---

MS-MVP Windows Desktop Experience

"When all else fails try what the captain suggested before you started..."

Answer 4

In my case, I'm not wanting to have a concurrent session with the remote account, ie I don't need to have the user watching or interacting with whatever changes I perform.   Just the ability to log in to the active account and use it.

Example: 

In XP Pro, we could log into a remote (host) pc using the same account name and password that was currently logged in on the remote (host) pc.

The remote (host) pc user would immediately be sent to a blue login screen (he would still be logged in though).

I could then do what I needed to do and simply end the remote session.

The remote (host) pc user could just simply log back in or I could crtrl+alt+end and select restart and the remote(host)pc would reboot.

If you try this with Windows 7 you get a red X with a little balloon saying that your username is incorrect and you can't start a remote desktop session.

Now if you make a second account on the remote(host)pc and log in to it...you can log in fine and RD works fine - BUT ONLY in that second account and not the currently logged in account at the remote(host)pc. 

I need access to the remote(host)pc's currently logged in account/session.

I have to be missing something here...

Answer 5

Ok, solved my own problem for those intereseted.

Log in as the remote(host)pc account then also use the NAME of the remote(host) PC

Like:       RemoteHost\Remote Host

It's the space that got me and the NAME of the pc.

Everything seems to work like XP did.

I'll take the dumba** award now.