Questions about Windows Remote Desktop.

[kdogg]

I have a couple general questions about the Windows 7 Remote Desktop software built into Windows 7 Professional.

My computer at home is always on. I run a Plex server off of it and I also use it to bypass my works firewalls and filters. We block just about everything BUT remote desktop connects as we use them at work.

I want to be able to log into the same desktop account that I use on the computer as that is where everything is located. When I first tried to login it gave me some message that I could not have another connection to that login as it was already active. I forget the exact message. I could however log into another account that was not active. I was always under the impression you could connect to an active login, once, remotely.

So doing some reading I found a patch that patches a file that allows multiple remote connections. That fixed it. I could now connect to my current login without issues. Worked great for years but now it's super flakey.

Right now I'm sitting at home, logged in as my admin account and if I try to connect it may or may not work. It will either work or give me an error that the service is currently busy. Now once I do get logged on or get that error, when I get home tonight and try to log back into my local account, I till just get a black screen with a movable cursor and it will go no where. I will have to force a restart to get back into my computer.

I'm thinking it's time for a refresh/reinstall of Windows 7 SP1 PRO 64bit.

SO when I redo windows, shouldn't I be able to log into my active login remotely without patching files? My net admin at work says yes, Windows 7 allows one connection to your current login.

Thoughts? Comments?

 

[cyberSAR]

By default you can log in to one account. The account will have to be logged out locally to log in remotely. The biggest issue I find is when a user doesn't properly log out from the remote session and logs in locally. They get black screens, video setting issues etc. Never have issues when they log out properly.

 

[kdogg]

OK so you can't login and take control of your current session then? Because that is exactly what I want to do.

Which was the reason for the DLL patch, to allow more than one concurrent connection or so I thought.

I have my Plex server running from my primary login. If I log out, that goes down. Plus other things, Utorrent, NO-IP etc.

However, I don't want to log into a separate account and start stuff there too.

So it's almost sounding like I need to find another solution other than Windows 7 and remote desktop. The DLL patch method has been flakey as hell.

The black screen issue happens a lot and requires me to hard reset. Here is an example of what happens:

1. So I log in at home as say "kdogg".
2. I lock my screen at night and when I get to work, I used Remote Desktop to connect to my home PC. I login to my active "kdogg" session, normally OK.
3. Not wanting to close this because something is going on in the back ground, I just "disconnect".
4. I get home, I go to log into my current session and I get a black screen with a mouse pointer, that's it. I have to press restart to fix it.

Now if we back up to steps 2 and 3, if I disconnect at work and then go back to log back into my session, it normally hangs and then starts saying the remote desktop service is busy and not responding, then it won't stop doing that until I go home and press the reset button.

Basically when I remote into my home computer, I know it's going to be black screened now tonight. I logged in today to move a movie over to my Plex server for my friend and now I just know I will have to hard reset when I get home now.

Makes sense that it's a video issue though, the computer will continue to work for things like Plex, I just will get that dang black desktop.

 

[kdogg]

Oh I should mention my primary home computer runs Windows 7 SP1 PRO 64bit but my work computer is a MacBook running Yosemite and the Microsoft RDP app.

I do bootcamp so I can access Windows 7 on this unit, it's installed on this MAC but I get this same issue on Windows too.

 

[cyberSAR]

Sorry I answered quickly before. Yes you can log in to your account as you have been doing. You can't view the screen locally and be logged in via RDP remotely. I often disconnect when i am running something and want to get back in later. The issue comes up if I disconnect a remote session and then log in locally. It either hangs or exhibits video issues as you have seen. My clients also experience the same issues if they don't log out from a remote session. They're good for just closing windows which is disconnecting rather than logging out. They are all using Win7 or 8 as host and mostly win 7 as remote.

You may want to take a look at something like team viewer. I've been using AnyDesk lately and it is working well although I do prefer RDP. AnyDesk - The World's Fastest Remote Desktop Application