Windows Terminal Services

[Leviathan]

Well i've been reinstalling operating systems and playing with Windows Server 2003 and  upgradeing machines and stuff.

I have a media box thats connected to my TV. So its used for watching video etc. It used to be XP but now I want to use it as my download server also so I installed Windows Server 2003 on in so I could have multiple sessions on it (session for downloading and server stuff and one for the user that is using the screen). Well for some reason I ran into a ATI driver bug with the machine and after installing and trying lots of stuff with the drivers i've not been able to get the drivers working correctly even tho its using ATI drivers... The video is still jumpy and pixelated on it as if it had no drivers at all. This is not acceptable for viewing video as when it had XP on it it was top quality.

So im planing on going back to XP (arg), I only realy installed Server on it for the Terminal Services but it turns out you can have multiple sessions with XP

You just gotta use a old Terminal Server version and do a bit of config.

[dm-horus]

could you explain the process here for us? i think thats pretty handy.

[BlackBox]

I think XP might limit the number of terminal server session logins to 2 at a time or something like that. I know server 2003 small business edition does (and it's a server version of windows which is supposed to remove the connection limit built into the network stack and a few other limits)

[Leviathan]

Well they had plans in SP2 to allow more than one connection but in the final version its back to the standard one connection at a time. Its to do with the licence. Only one person should be able to use the machine at a time because its a single user licence.



Anyway you can get past this and make it so you can have more than one session on the machine as shown above.

Howto?:

Goto Control Panel > User Acccounts. Click 'Change the way users log on or off'. Tick Use the Welcome screen and tick Use Fast User Switching. Apply and Close.
Goto Conrol Panel > Administrative Tools > Services. On Terminal Services set startup type to Disabled.
Goto Control Panel > System. Goto Remote tab. Untick 'Allow users to connect remotely to this computer' Click OK.
Start > Run > regedit
Goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Licensing Core
Create New > DWORD. Call it 'EnableConcurrentSessions' and set its value to 1.
Start > Run > gpedit.msc
Goto Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Terminal Services
Click 'Limit number of connections' and set it to enabled and enter your value (eg 10).
Note: On one of my machines I coudlnt see Terminal Services in the list, I got this screen:



You should get this screen/list:



If you dont have it in the list it dosent matter - termial services will still work. And also I think I worked out how to edit this value from the registry.

Download this version of termsrv.dll (5.1.2600.2055)
Reboot into Safe Mode - This is necessary to remove Windows File Protection.
Copy the file and overwrite the current files in these locations:
C:\windows\system32
C:\windows\system32\dllcache
You will have to enter to second location into the address bar to get to the folder as it is hiden.

Reboot to normal mode.
Goto Control Panel > System. Goto Remote tab. Tick 'Allow users to connect remotely to this computer' Click OK.
Goto Conrol Panel > Administrative Tools > Services. On Terminal Services set startup type to Manual.
Reboot once again.

And if you dont want that stupid welcome screen on xp when you start your computer and want auto logon:
Start > Run > regedit
Goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Set DefaultUserName to your username.
Create New > String Value. Call it 'DefaultPassword' and set its value to your password.
Create New > String Value. Call it 'AutoAdminLogon' and set its value to 1.

Enjoy

[BlackBox]

Couple things I see:

1- Autologon can also be controlled with Tweak UI. Go on microsoft's site and search for Powertoys for windows XP. (if you don't want to edit the registry)

2- %SystemRoot%\system32\dllcache is the backup directory for Windows File Protection as far as I know. If you overwrite the file there first I think it won't automatically replace the file (if the dialog pops up however you will be prompted to insert the windows CD). No safe mode needed.
There is some other way to disable WFP permanently as well if you want (I can't remember right now though).

[Leviathan]

I tryed on one machine with out going into safe mode - didnt work.

And I thought the windows files were backed up in CAB files somewhere.

There is a service for protected files and folders (like the private files/folderes for users I assume) that you can disable but I dont think that is anything to do with WFP.

And yea you can also enable auto logon by going to control userpasswords2.