Enable Concurrent Sessions In Windows Vista Business and Ultimate (SP1 32 and 64bit)

Discussion in 'Windows Guides' started by InsaneNutter, Dec 12, 2008.

  1. InsaneNutter

    InsaneNutter Resident Nutter Staff Member

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2007
    Messages:
    12,252
    Likes Received:
    3,724
    Location:
    Yorkshire, England
    Enable Concurrent Sessions In Windows Vista Business and Ultimate (SP1 32 and 64bit)

    What is Concurrent Sessions?

    Concurrent sessions is a feature in server editions of Windows that lets more than one user to log on remotely and use the server at the same time. By default in Vista when you connect to a remote computer using Remote Desktop it will force the user who is physically sat at the computer to log off, this concurrent sessions hack allows you to Remote Desktop in to a computer without logging the current active user off, this will allow two people to use the same computer running Vista at the same time.

    Why would you want to do this?

    There could be many different reasons, for example in our house we have a dedicated Media Centre PC running in the living room, its handy for me to be able to log on to the pc without disrupting the person watching TV, with concurrent sessions I can do this.

    It could also be useful if you have a shared computer and want to access your computer from school/work when someone else at home is using the computer, with the concurrent sessions hack you could do this without disrupting the user physically sat at the computer.

    How to do it?

    This is actually very easy now, a user on the greenbutton forums called untermensch has created a script that automates the entire process for you.

    You can download the concurrent sessions hack from the Digiex mirror

    After it has downloaded unzip and it and click on the install.bat file, if you have UAC enabled you might right click and run as Administrator.

    Before installing make sure your Vista install has Service Pack 1 installed, this will not work if you don’t have SP1.

    The script will ask if you want to continue:

    [​IMG]

    Say yes

    The concurrent sessions hack will now install:

    [​IMG]

    The installer will finish and check the Remote Desktop service is listening again:

    [​IMG]

    That’s it, all been well the hack is installed successfully.

    To test it out simply leave the current user logged on to the pc, now connect to the computer remotely using a different user account to the one you left logged on. If all has gone well both users will be logged on and active.

    Here is a screen shot of me logged on to our Media Center remotely without logging the Media Center user off:

    [​IMG]



    Apparently this hack will install on Vista Home Premium and enable the use of remote desktop (remote desktop is not supposed to be included in Vista Home Premium)

    I don’t have a computer running Home Premium to test this out on, if you choose to do so try it at your own risk. Feel free to report back on your findings with Vista Home Premium.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. Nimrod

    Nimrod Exotic Vendor

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2007
    Messages:
    1,991
    Likes Received:
    533
    Location:
    London, United Kingdom
    Works on Home Premium, can now connect to it via Remote Desktop. :)

    Only thing missing is the options in the Windows system control panel, however every account with admin can be logged into via remote desktop. Also windows firewall isn't automatically configured on home premium for remote desktop, so i had to manually add port 3389. Other than that it works :)
     
  3. nykayfabe

    nykayfabe New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 9, 2009
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    This is working beautifully when I use my XP laptop to connect to my Vista Home Premium desktop. For that, many thanks.

    However, I can't login to the same desktop using my Macbook, either by IP address or machine name. I was previously able to login to an XP desktop from this Macbook, so I'm not sue what I should do to get it working. Any ideas?

    Thanks in advance.
     
  4. InsaneNutter

    InsaneNutter Resident Nutter Staff Member

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2007
    Messages:
    12,252
    Likes Received:
    3,724
    Location:
    Yorkshire, England
    Do you mean you can’t connect full stop from the Mac or just when another user is logged in?
     

Share This Page