Have you ever remote desktoped (that’s a word isn’t it?) into your home machine and kicked off your significant other? You wind up with her Bloomingdales order form and she winds up mad. She logs back in and kicks you off – fun, fun, fun.
We found a nifty little trick from Golod.com dating back a few years… He found out that by using a XP RC2 termserver.dll file and a little registry know-how you can enable up to 3 concurrent remote desktop sessions to the one machine. This makes it like Windows Server 2000 or 2003.
If you use a Windows Media Center this is gold. As the author goes on to describe when he remoted into his MCE machine the TV output would stop – weak. So this was his work-a-round…
Here is a HACK (translated: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK), to enable multiple Remote Desktop sessions on your XP Pro or MCE 2005 box:
NOTE: You will have to have knowledge of the Windows operating system and more specifically the Windows Registry. If you have no experience with the registry, then I would recommend you find someone who does or leave these alone. I do not make any kind of warranty that this will work for you or your friends. This is provided for entertainment purposes only. Don’t call me if your computer stops working. Got it?
- Print these directions so that you have them to work from.
- Restart your computer in Safe Mode – Follow this link to learn how to restart Windows XP in Safe Mode
- Turn off/disable Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) and Terminal Services
- Right click My Computer
- Select Properties
- Click on the Remote tab at the top of the window
- UNCHECK the box next to, “Allow users to connect remotely to this computer“
- Click OK
- Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services
- Find Terminal Services in the list
- Right click on Terminal Services and click Properties
- In the Startup Type box, select Disabled
- Click OK to close the window
- Next you will replace the current version of the Terminal Services DLL (termsrv.dll) with an unrestricted version from a previous release of Terminal Services. (XP RC2 to be exact)
- Here is a copy of the Terminal Services DLL – Save it to your Desktop or other suitable location
- Using a file manager like Windows Explorer open C:\Windows\system32\dllcache
- Rename the file termsrv.dll to termsrv_dll.bak or whatever you would like.
- Copy the downloaded termsrv.dll file (the one you just downloaded from the web) to C:\Windows\system32\dllcache
- Open the C:\Windows\system32 folder
- Delete the file termsrv.dll in C:\Windows\system32
- Now we can edit the Windows Registry to enable more than one RDP connection. Go to Start -> Run and type regedit – Hopefully you knew that already
- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Licensing Core
- Add a DWORD Key named EnableConcurrentSessions and give it a value of 1
- Close the Registry Editor window
- Go to Start -> Run and type gpedit.msc to run the Group Policy Editor
- Browse to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Terminal Services and double click Limit number of connections
- Select the Enabled button and enter the number of connections you would like to enable….at least 2.
- Restart Windows
- Right click My Computer and select Properties.
- Click on the Remote tab at the top of the window
- CHECK the box next to, “Allow users to connect remotely to this computer“
- Click OK
- Go to Start -> Control Panel ->Administrative Tools -> Services. Select Terminal Services from the list and double click it or right-click -> Properties. Set the Startup Type to Manual.
- Restart Windows/Computer
You should be good to go.
[Via Golod.com]
Posted in 
This is old news…
There’s a much better Auto-Patch that does it all for you. it even support XP SP3
download from:
http://www.kood.org/terminal-server-patch/
YaronMaor
Hmmm… tried this a few years ago and have to say that I could not get it running on XP-pc hooked up to a Windows Domain. Standalone pc where working fine.
A fix anyone?
greetz,
BB
Old news to you great news for my wife :). That patch worked great Yaron but I do not see any difference from the steps above – except for ease of use.
I did the above steps on an XP SP3 machine as well.
I got it working on a domain machine – XP SP3. You are going to have to check your domain group policy and make sure some settings are being over-written.
Just as a mental exercise, I wonder how this impacts Microsoft licensing? On the one hand it is pretty crappy that the TV output on XP MCE stops when you RDP into it, but on the other hand one concurrent connection is part of the license (though in light of the loss of functionality issue, I would have to believe that a judge would just throw the issue out).
Interesting… you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve been dealing with Microsoft licensing all week.
He would probably wind up getting fined or a warning legally but in the real world you make software work however you need to.
Have you ever seen a M$ henchmen show up at a consumers house to inspect their licenses? This won’t happen until M$ buys the gov’t off better than they have.
Good stuff, this will come in handy
Of course M$ isn’t going after home use pirates (in fact in my opinion they actually ENCOURAGE it, but that is a topic for a MUCH longer post), however I really did mean that in a “mental exercise” only way. Like I said I’ve been dealing with M$ licensing all week, and MAN I’ll tell you right now, the RIAA has NOTHING on M$ as far as licensing restrictions and convoluted exception rules lol.
I am trying to set it up on a domain but it doesn’t work. Which settings on in domain group policy need to be changed?
What settings in domain GPO?
I cant get this to work on xp sp3 in domain
but after that Patch i cant access sharing folders.? ????????
After that Patch can’t Access my shared Folders from other computers
what error are you getting Ali?
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Doesn’t seem to be working no matter what I do. The dll keeps being overwritten by the 4/13 dll.
What’s the OS? Did you try this: http://www.kood.org/terminal-server-patch/
Thanks for the reply, unfortunately, the machine IS on a domain. Am I out of luck?
Thanks!
Barbara