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Rarely do we get the “privilege” of working in freezing cold server rooms to access Aqualogic portal servers directly. Instead, the connection of choice is the Remote Desktop Connection application that connects to Terminal Services on those systems.

It’s pretty common to have to move files to and from these servers, and the usual route most people take is mapping a file share from their desktop to the remote system. But, another relatively unknown way to do this is to access your local system from the remote session itself, so you don’t have to switch back and forth between Windows Explorer and the remote desktop. To do this, simply click “Options” in the Remote Desktop window before connecting, then go to “Local Resources”. There you can set up local resources (such as your clipboard or local drives) to be visible in the remote session. Then, once you connect, you can just go to Windows Explorer and you should see your own local drive show up as a share on the remote server.

Another relatively unknown feature of Remote Desktop is the ability to connect to the “Console” of the remote server. If you work in an environment where a lot of people connect to the server, you’re all too familiar with the usual 2-session limit imposed on remote connections; getting an error “The terminal server has exceeded the maximum number of allowed connections”:

This error can happen even when noone is currently connected but their sessions are still alive. To guarantee a connection to the remote server, use the following command:

mstsc /v:SERVERNAME /console

This will start up the remote connection as the “console”, as if you were physically sitting in front of it (rather than the 2 virtual sessions normally used). Keep in mind that it will log off anyone else connected to the console, even if they’re actually logged on locally. Usually, this feature is used to go in to the console, open the Terminal Services configuration, and close the open sessions that are open so that you can log in the “normal” way.