Remote Control of Console Session

This has been a bugbear of mine for a while but one I had never got round to fixing and using. I spent an awful lot of time logging off sessions and logging on afresh to a new session instead of taking control of the console session and using the existing one to read current application activity etc. on apps that had to stay running.

To enable the ability to take control you first need to enable taking over the session without input from the console session.

To do that:

1. On the server you want to take control of START - RUN - gpedit.msc
2. Expand Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - Windows Components
3. Select Terminal Services, find the entry 'Sets rules for remote control of Terminal Services user sessions'
4. Double-click it and click the enabled radio button
5. In the drop down that appears select 'Full control without user's permission'
6. Click OK and close gpedit.msc

Now to take control of a console session you can use two methods, log in via terminal services to the same server and then at the command prompt enter 'SHADOW 0' this will take control of the session 0 (the console) and drop your session in the process. If someone is logged on at the console it will lock the computer.

The other method is via the client. Type 'msdtc.exe /v:computername /console' and you will go straight into the console. If like us the admin has been disabled to prevent hacking you might only be able to use the first option.