I have seen a considerable amount of discussion around the use of concurrent sessions via RDP with Vista.  This is a great feature and I like that it allows you to loging without interrupting someone who is currently logged in to the PC.  However, the one item I do find frustrating is that if you login with the same profile via RDP that is already actively opened, Vista will open an entirely new session.  If programs are running then they can't be accessed.  Ultimately, is there a way to choose between whether you want concurrent sessions or not giving the user the ability to login to an active profile or choose another profile and not "knock off" the active profile?

In the registry:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\fSingleSessionPerUser

Set it to 1 to only a single session for each user, or 0 to allow multiple sessions.

Don't think you can control it dynamically at the point where you try and connect.

 

I really appreciate it.  I'll try it tonight.

I wish Microsoft would have thought this through a bit more because I would have to think there is a way to accomplish both, basically, giving you the best of both worlds.  I have countless times where processes may be running on a machine and I would like to login remotely to see where it stands.  Concurrent sessions won't allow for this.  It will simply create a new session even if you attempt to login with the same profile. 

Conversely, there are also times when I want to login remotely but do not want to interfere with what is going on locally.  Media Center activities are a perfect example of this. 

As I see it the most elegant approach would be to have checkboxes in RDP on the client side that would force one behavior or the other.  If nothing is forced then concurrent sessions should always be available if the client is attempting to login with a profile that is different than the one currently active on the server.  If nothing is forced and the client attempts to login with a profile that is the same as the one that is active on the server then the user should be prompted to use either a concurrent session or login to the current session.

 

mark1234:

Don't think you can control it dynamically at the point where you try and connect.

 

Holy cow.  I tested it last night and it does work dynamically!

Can you explain further? This could be useful.

 

mark1234:

Can you explain further? This could be useful.

 

Sure. If I remote in to a machine that is using concurrent sessions I can go in to the registry and make the quick update, log out, log back in, and then it allows me to login without concurrent sessions. This is great if I have an active process like video rendering and just want to check on it. I'm sure I might be able to create a batch file that allows for the quick change either one way or the other.