Enable Remote Desktop remotely

Tuesday, December 14. 2004

I recently brought 2 colocated servers online running Windows 2003 Server. Being paranoid regarding security, especially on a production Windows server, I had the network people filter all traffic to the box except SMTP, HTTP and PPTP. I figured any other access I needed could be done over a VPN tunnel. Well, what I forgot to do was to enable Remote Desktop before I brought the box down to the NOC. So, when I got back to the office to test it, I could VPN in with no problems, but could not get a Remote Desktop.

I fired up the MMC, and connected to the remote machine. Terminal Services were running. Still couldn't connect via RDP. Did some digging online and found a way to enable Remote Desktop from the registry.

Launched regedt32.exe (can't use regedit.exe for remote registries), connected to the remote registry, and set the appropriate key. Voila! I was in! Here is the key / value you need to set:

KEY: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer
DATA: fDenyTSConnections
VALUE: 0 = enable Remote Desktop / 1 = disabled

Posted under the influence of [[NiN :: the mark has been made]]

Posted by JClermont in Windows Desktop at 21:45 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

Comments

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Did a google search for this and your blog entry from a year ago was the 2nd hit.

Thanks for posting this.... I was ready for a long hunt. I just had to restore my work PC all last night, was in the office all day and never did enable remote desktop.

This saved me a trip into the office tomorrow.

#1 Eric Pearson (Link) on 2005-12-04 00:15 (Reply)

Thanks - Helped me out of a tight spot!

#2 Karl Foley (Link) on 2006-09-25 12:41 (Reply)

Thanks, also pulled me out of tight spot.

#3 Bojan on 2007-10-09 08:00 (Reply)

Oh man.. you da man

#4 Randy Couture on 2009-02-07 14:10 (Reply)

Save this code to a text file and name it EnableRemoteConnect.vbs

==== CODE ====

'==========================================
' NAME: EnableRemoteConnect.vbs
' AUTHOR: Kevin Dondrea, Support
' DATE : 9/16/2009
' COMMENT: Enables Remote Desktop Connect feature. It does not add a user with
' permissions who can login.
'==========================================

Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002

strComputer = "."

Set objReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & _
strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")

strKeyPath = "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server"

strValueName = "fDenyTSConnections"
strValue = "0"
objReg.SetDWORDValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strKeyPath,strValueName,strValue

==== END CODE ====

This code is to Disable Remote Connect

==== CODE ====

'==========================================
' NAME: DisableRemoteConnect.vbs
' AUTHOR: Kevin Dondrea, Support
' DATE : 9/16/2009
' COMMENT: Enables Remote Desktop Connect feature. It does not add a user with
' permissions who can login.
'==========================================

Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002

strComputer = "."

Set objReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & _
strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")

strKeyPath = "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server"

strValueName = "fDenyTSConnections"
strValue = "1"
objReg.SetDWORDValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strKeyPath,strValueName,strValue

==== END CODE ====

#4.1 Kevin Dondrea (Link) on 2009-10-17 22:26 (Reply)

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