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Omar Shahine
Asked: 2009-06-26 08:51:39 +0800 CST

Enable remote desktop on a machine remotely

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Many times i am trying to connect to another machine, but realize when I'm connecting that Remote Desktop is not enabled on the target computer.

How does one enable remote destktop on the target machine, remotley?

windows remote-desktop

6 Answers

  1. IntelliAdmin has a free utility for this:

    http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2006/06/remotely-enable-remote-desktop.html

    EDIT - I cant remember if you need to open a firewall port or not to use this. If so, I use pstools to disable firewall on remote machines with the command prompt. Then run the tool. Then enable the firewall.

    The psexec command to disable/enable firewall is: netsh firewall set opmode mode = disable

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  2. If the machine is in a domain you can use group policies to enable remote desktop.

    If you can connect with remote registry, check this out: http://www.petri.co.il/remotely_enable_remote_desktop_on_windows_server_2003.htm

    You might be able to use psexec from sysinternals to run some script that will enable rdp.

    (I use the first alternative)

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  3. Best Answer

    Check this hack from O'Reilly posted back in 2004.

    http://oreilly.com/windows/archive/server-hacks-remote-desktop.html

    Basically, you just remote log into target computer's registry and change the settings there.

    Hope it helps.

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  4. A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far Away, I wrote this script as part of an automated Windows Server 2003 deployment script.

    rd.reg:

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server]
"fDenyTSConnections"=dword:00000000

    Run the command (this was from a batch script running locally on the machine, to a mapped z drive):

    c:\windows\regedit /s z:\netinst\rd.reg

    If using AD you could push this out using Group Policy.

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  5. Use WMI and the "[SetAllowTSConnections][1]" Method of the "Win32_TerminalServiceSetting" Class!

    From a Windows 2003 command line, you can use the following from the command line:

    wmic /node:TargetName RDToggle where ServerName="TargetName" call SetAllowTSConnections 1

    [1]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa383644(VS.85).aspx SetAllowTSConnections

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  6. Change the registry value remotely? Might need to reboot though.

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