remote desktop - auto-login again on server when session ends

[Gerard Farrell]

Hi group,

Is it possible to get my XP box to log itself back on after a remote desktop
session has been completed?

The box in question is to be used in a factory environment to monitor a
process, and although the operators don't generally need to interact with
it, they do need to keep an eye on the display. I'd like the maintenance
engineers to be able to remote desktop to the machine to check things out
(from other sites sometimes), but when they end their session I want the box
to log back in to itself so the operators can see the display again.

I've only just started using reomte desktop so apologies if this is a
trivial question.

Thanks,

Gerry

[alex_k._angelopoulos_(mvp)]

It's not a trivial question. This may not be the best way to do what you want,
though - at least, I don't know a workaround for it.

You might want to look at using TightVNC (http://www.tightvnc.com) as a tool for
remote control in this situation; it won't log out the desktop session, either.

"Gerard Farrell" <ger...@infact-holdings.com> wrote in message
news:aeq56g$967fd$1...@ID-47087.news.dfncis.de...

[Al @Home]

Actually, NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing (RDS) is even better yet in this
situation. Simply because the remote box won't logout, it will be protected
during the session, but available after the remote user quits the session
*AND* because the RDS session is natively encrypted at 128-bits.

Al

<Alex K. Angelopoulos (MVP)> wrote in message
news:uk0hg$CGCHA.2496@tkmsftngp08...

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[alex_k._angelopoulos_(mvp)]

Forgot about the Netmeeting alternative.

Unfortunately, you do need to do the following as I seem to recall: make sure
Netmeeting is set to continually run, the system is never logged out
accidentally, and someone is in attendance to accept the connection.

If the connection has to happen over a public network, though, there is
substantial benefit to Netmeeting due to the security abilities you mention.
You *can* run a secure VNC connection, but it's a nightmare to set up -
NetMeeting just does it automatically.

"Al @Home" <A...@Home.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:OTXK5sEGCHA.1744@tkmsftngp13...

[Bill Sanderson]

You can set NetMeeting to accept the connection automatically--no one is
needed at the remote end.

<Alex K. Angelopoulos (MVP)> wrote in message

news:OjED60EGCHA.1288@tkmsftngp10...

[alex_k._angelopoulos_(mvp)]

I've never done that; how is it configured, Bill?

"Bill Sanderson" <bill_NoSpa...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:#$wo1FKGCHA.2616@tkmsftngp13...

[Bill Sanderson]

Good question--let me see if I can figure it out on a 2k box.

Hmm--without doing a full-scale test,
Call,

Automatically accept calls (gets a check mark)

would seem to do it. I've also got it set to only accept secure calls when
not in a meeting, which I think is a prerequisite.

(I can't get this tested properly tonight--but I know I've made it work in
the past)

<Alex K. Angelopoulos (MVP)> wrote in message

news:uVtuNJMGCHA.2644@tkmsftngp09...

[Al @Home]

Open NetMeeting then go to "Tools -> Remote Desktop Sharing" and CHECK
the "Enable Remote Desktop Sharing on this computer" checkbox. Set your
password as required. Click "OK", then go to "Call -> Exit and Activate
Remote Desktop Sharing". You will see a small icon down in the right
hand corner "System Tray" for RDS. RDS will now start automatically at
reboot time.

Al

"Bill Sanderson" <bill_NoSpa...@msn.com> wrote in message

news:#jPvybMGCHA.1852@tkmsftngp12...

[Bill Sanderson]

That part I thought I remembered correctly, but all the machines I could
find to look at last night had RDS greyed out, and I couldn't remember what
that meant! I got it activated on one of them, but it was on a network I
cannot reach via VPN and I was too lazy to open the ports on the firewall to
try to reach it directly.

"Al @Home" <A...@Home.net.invalid> wrote in message

news:egvSZERGCHA.2324@tkmsftngp09...

[Al @Work]

Bill,

If the RDS feature is greyed out on a corporate box, which
I presume your talking about, its possible the System
Admins installed a custom version of NetMeeting. Using the
NetMeeting Resource Kit, you can build a highly customized
version and distribute it to your client boxes. You can
enable/disable selected options, ie. audio, video, desktop
sharing, RDS, etc. It, ie. customizing NetMeeting this
way, works very well.

Look at this link for details.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/NetMeeting/Corp/reskit/Cha
pter2/default.asp#five

As always, watch the line wrap in the URL...

Al

>> > > > > > news:uk0hg$CGCHA.2496@tkmsftngp08.Í
{ wÀ j ô_ín|ÞänÌ Ü ìÑ ..

>> > > > > > > It's not a trivial question. This may not
be the best way to
>do
>> > what
>> > > > you
>> > > > > > want,
>> > > > > > > though - at least, I don't know a
workaround for it.
>> > > > > > >
>> > > > > > > You might want to look at using TightVNC
>> (http://www.tightvnc.com)
>> > as
>> > > > a
>> > > > > > tool for
>> > > > > > > remote control in this situation; it won't
log out the desktop
>> > > > session,
>> > > > > > either.
>> > > > > > >

>> > > > > > > "Gerard Farrell" <gerard@infact-
holdings.com> wrote in message
>> > > > > > > news:aeq56g$967fd$1@ID-

>.
>

[Bill Sanderson]

In this case, I'm the corporate admin, so it wasn't that issue, unless some
security template I applied did this.

The real issue in the thread was "can a remote desktop sharing Netmeeting
call be answered unattended?" and I don't recall that there's any real
problem with that, right?

"Al @Work" <A...@Work.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:1203601c21936$70017fb0$35ef2ecf@TKMSFTNGXA11...
Bill,

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/NetMeeting/Corp/reskit/Cha
pter2/default.asp#five

Al

>> > > > > > news:uk0hg$CGCHA.2496@tkmsftngp08.ﾍ
{掫ﾀ j 匤|ﾞ舅ﾌ ﾜ �ﾑ ..

[alex_k._angelopoulos_(mvp)]

I think guys pretty well established that for us!

I should sit down and play with the Netmeeting stuff over the weekend...

"Bill Sanderson" <bill_NoSpa...@msn.com> wrote in message

news:OH3gvuTGCHA.1988@tkmsftngp08...

[Al @Work]

Nope, at least in my experience. I used to do that to
access my home Windows Me box from work via my Linksys
router. I simply configured NetMeeting to "Auto answer"
and only accept secure/data calls, as you described
earlier, and configured Remote Desktop Sharing, as I
described earlier. Note, through the Linksys router I had
to forward TCP Port 1503 to the appropriate private IP
address.

It worked very well.

Later...

Al

>-----Original Message-----
>

<--- SNIP --->

[Bill Sanderson]

Thanks for the note on the router port--that'll be useful for folks watching
this thread.

"Al @Work" <A...@Work.net.invalid> wrote in message

news:f37601c2194b$54e94310$a5e62ecf@tkmsftngxa07...

[Gerard Farrell]

Hi guys,

It's been an interesting thread, and it seems that there are remote working
solutions out there, but can I point out that the actual real issue was "can
the Remote Desktop bundled with XP automatically log the host machine back
on when the remote session is closed". The reason I'd like to point back to
this is if I'm going to implement XP I'd prefer to use its features rather
than add in 3rd party (albeit from MS if I went Netmeeting) tools. Much as I
love MS, if XP Remote Desktop is the way they're going then how long will
Netmeeting be supported?

The original answers seemed to suggest that there was no way to auto-logon
back into the XP host once the remote session had logged it off, but if
anyone has anything to add I'd appreciate it.

Cheers,

Gerry

"Bill Sanderson" <bill_NoSpa...@msn.com> wrote in message

news:OH3gvuTGCHA.1988@tkmsftngp08...

[Bill Sanderson]

Not true at all.

I have a machine in an NT4 domain.

It can be set to autologin, and thus boot from poweron into a desktop with a
particular user logged in.

(I can, in fact, power it up remotely)

Once in this condition, I can connect to it via RD, using that users
credentials.

Whatever is running remains running, whether I am connected remotely, or I
walk up to it locally and use those same credentials.

The same is true for my home machine, in a workgroup, with a PPPoE DSL
connection--except that I can't as easily power it up remotely.

"Gerard Farrell" <ger...@infact-holdings.com> wrote in message

news:af6m45$c0o61$1...@ID-47087.news.dfncis.de...

[Gerard Farrell]

I think I understand and agree with everything you're saying, but what
happens when you use XP remote desktop client to remotely connect into an XP
machine? On my setup, it locks the user out of the host so they cannot
interfere with the remote session, but does not log then in again when the
remote session is terminated. What I would like it to do is to log them in
again, so their session becomes visible again.

As the thread has become a little long, I'll restate my original
scenario...I'm running XP on a process control machine that generally
requires no user interaction, but does display data on the screen that the
operators need to see. Occasionally, a maintenance engineer might want to
check the process by remotely logging in, but when he's finished, the
operators need to get their display back.

I haven't managed to find a way to do this, although I will confess I'm very
new to XP and remote desktop and the answer might be right under my nose.
Comments from others suggest there is no easy way to do it, which is why we
got started on other remote desktop solutions that can do it.

So, ignoring VNC, Netmeeting, NT4 etc, can the remote desktop client that is
shipped with XP connect to a remote XP box and then enable the local display
again once it's finished?

Cheers,

Gerry

"Bill Sanderson" <bill_NoSpa...@msn.com> wrote in message

news:u2cAyQ4GCHA.2496@tkmsftngp09...

[alex_k._angelopoulos_(mvp)]

That's why I suggested VNC. As far as I know, the only way you can relogin
automatically is if you have it set for auto logon and do a reboot when the
remote session logs off.

"Gerard Farrell" <ger...@infact-holdings.com> wrote in message

news:af7gqe$c49ae$1...@ID-47087.news.dfncis.de...

[Bill Sanderson]

Sorry to be a bit slow on the uptake.

Here's something to try, which I'd been thinking about for some time on this
thread, but failed to find and mention:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------
Try this, from
Alex Stephens [MS]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Yes, there is another way. When you´ve finished with session from the Remote
Desktop client, do not disconnect. Instead, connect that session to the
console with tscon, which is a Windows command-line tool. For example, if
you are connected with the Remote Desktop client to session 0, the following
command, run from a Command Prompt window, will connect your session back to
the console (and disconnect you in so doing):

C:\>tscon 0 /dest:console

If you don´t know what your session ID is, you can find out with qwinsta,
either manually or in a for loop with tscon. For example:

C:\>for /f "tokens=3" %i in ('qwinsta ^| findstr /b ^^^>') do tscon %i
/dest:console

This command runs qwinsta, extracts the session ID from the output, then
connects the corresponding session to the console.

Regards
Alex

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--

"Francesco" <francesc...@cae.it> wrote in message
news:9b8401c20ae0$297c28b0$36ef2ecf@tkmsftngxa12...
> i have a PC with Win XP pro, and administer it with the
> remote desktop connection trough a LAN.
> Is it possible to connect leaving opened the remote PC,
> not with the logon screen?
>
> I want to connect and disconnect without to force the
> remote user to do a logon after the remote connection.
>
> Bye
> Francesco

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------

"Gerard Farrell" <ger...@infact-holdings.com> wrote in message

news:af7gqe$c49ae$1...@ID-47087.news.dfncis.de...

[Gerard Farrell]

Thanks for the info Bill. I'll give that a go and try and get back to this
thread with the result.

Cheers,

Gerry

"Bill Sanderson" <bill_NoSpa...@msn.com> wrote in message

news:#DCM$Q7GCHA.2644@tkmsftngp11...

[Gerard Farrell]

Wow - it works. For final reference, the command is:

for /f "tokens=3" %i in ('qwinsta ^| findstr /b ^^^>') do tscon %i
/dest:console

Execute this from the remote session instead of ending the session and it
will drop the session for you and enable the host display again.

Thanks to Bill for digging this info out, and all others who made
suggestions.

Best regards,

Gerry

"Gerard Farrell" <ger...@infact-holdings.com> wrote in message

news:af9839$c1nrt$1...@ID-47087.news.dfncis.de...

[Bill Sanderson]

This is probably a neat way to end an RD session which is, in fact, a tech
support session--I may choose to use RD to fix a problem for a user when it
is more expeditious than Remote Assistance might be--and it's awkward to
have to call them and say yes--it's ok to get back in now.

"Gerard Farrell" <ger...@infact-holdings.com> wrote in message

news:af9ltd$cp8tn$1...@ID-47087.news.dfncis.de...