Changes for Remote Desktops in Service Pack 3 for Windows XP

Many administrators are using the Remote Desktop feature provided by Microsoft. The Adminpak.msi from Windows Server 2003 brings a good utility called "Remote Desktops" to manage multiple remote connections.

A big advantage of remote desktop handling is the possibility connecting to console. Normally this is done by MSTSC.exe -console which is an implemented feature of Adminpak's "Remote Desktops".

After installing Service Pack 3 of Windows XP there is a major change using command line options for MSTSC. Microsoft introduced a new option called -admin to be used instead of -console. The same situation exists in Windows Vista where the option "-admin" must be used.

Unfortunately Microsoft does not provide updates for Adminpak.msi for Windows Server 2003 operating systems to support this new feature. This lead to bad situations during normal work because the administrator does not get a warning that he won't connect to console.

As many servers have programs to be started from autostart folder this could lead to problems because connecting without console means doubled processes. In most cases the administrator will get error messages of the starting DigaSystem applications because of access violations caused by writing into log files which are owned by the processes from session 0.

A workaround is available by using a different product to Microsoft's Remote Desktops. Royal TS is a product running under DOT NET Framework 3.5 which fully supports the option "-admin" or "/admin". You can get this application for free from the developer: http://www.code4ward.net/main/

Please note that also running MSTSC from command line is affected because no error message is displayed in case of using "-console" or "/console".

A full setup of Microsoft's .NET Framework 3.5 including Service Pack 1 and all older version of .NET to be used for offline installation is available from this link:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/0/f/60fc5854-3cb8-4892-b6db-bd4f42510f28/dotnetfx35.exe