Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

February 14, 2008 • from Maui, Hawaii • 27 comments

On this page:

Here's one idiotic change in Vista SP1: Looks like Microsoft decided to change the switch to launch the Terminal Services client so it can log on to the console of the machine/server to /admin from /console.

The new switch to connect to the server's active console session is:

%systemroot%\system32\mstsc.exe /admin

I suppose I can understand changing the switch to /admin since it's slightly more descriptive, but why the heck would you remove support for the old switch and immediately break anybody's shortcuts that were previously set up?

Of course if you look through the help there's no indication of this change. The only place to find this is by looking at the command line options for mstsc.exe...

Idiotic to the max!

The Voices of Reason

Steven Harman
February 15, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

I just keep waiting for them to bake in better support for multiple monitors - right now the only option is to use the

/span

flag.

I've used that to get a pseudo-multimonitor setup working with VirtualPC as well (http://stevenharman.net/blog/archive/2007/04/03/Using-Virtual-PC-with-Multiple-Monitors-Sort-Of.aspx).

Simon White
February 18, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

I also do not like the fact that the new client will not use the supplied credentials in an RDP file if you have never connected to the terminal server before. So that means there is no way to automate a new login to a terminal server. This broke my web portal where customers can login into the portal and then access their terminal services apps without having to login again. So I still working on the best solution to this problem.

I can handle that it does not save the password in the RDP file but I cannot handle it not using the password I supply.

Jason Stangroome
February 20, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

The /console switch setting can be stored in an .RDP file as "connect to console:i:1" but I can't work out how to store the /admin setting in an .RDP file. Grr.

Wayne
February 28, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

Just do a 'save as' for the .rdp file and it keeps the /admin switch in it

Teo CheeKoon
March 24, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

"Just do a 'save as' for the .rdp file and it keeps the /admin switch in it " - didn't work.
workaround:
text edit the RDP file,
connect to console:i:1 changed to
administrative session:i:1

Marcus
April 02, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

THANK YOU!!
For the past week I've been gnashing teeth trying to figure out why I don't seem to have console access any more.
I'm stunned they'd do something so silly!

Lopa
April 10, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

Thank you and WTF Microsoft :O

Marty
April 23, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

I reported this problem during the SP1 beta but they didn't listen. Many people voted on this as a problem, saying it would break 3rd party tools and scripts. I asked the beta team why they couldn't just add support for /admin, what's wrong with leaving support for /console also, and just remove it from the documentation. I guess we'll try again in SP2, but the damage is done.

Jerry
April 28, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

I can't even get /admin to work? It just says "An unknown parameter was specified in computer name field". I'm using the IP address as the name of the computer I'm connecting to, but that's just a DNS issue. I am using XP as the source for my RDP client, but I need to be at console on my Vista at the other end. I have Outlook installed there and it wants to configure a whole new session, forget it. Ahhhhh . . . can soneone give me the exact thing to enter. Like I said if it's just /admin I get that error????

Jeremy
April 30, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

You only need to use the /admin switch if you are using Vista as the Client. If you are using an XP client, it is still /console.

Either way, when you are connecting to Vista (Or even XP) you will always connect to the console. Only Windows Server 2003 and above can have multiple RDP connections at a time.

Jeremy
May 01, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

*Only with Windows Server 2003 and above can you connect to the console. Windows 2000 Server could of course have multiple RDP connections as well.

Aleksandras
May 09, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

Thanks a lot. After few restarts of my client computer I have decided to google for the solution of the problem. They shouldn't wonder, why nobody loves them...

Robert
May 14, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

Jeremy, I just did a fresh install of XP and my /console didn't work. It's /admin here on XPSP3.

Karthik
May 27, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

I have installed SP service pack 3 and "connect to console:i:1" didn't work.

After so much googling, I found yours.

"administrative session:i:1" works great. Thanks.

Mike
June 04, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

The easiest is to add

%SystemRoot%\system32\mstsc.exe -admin

to the shortcut or save as function in the target.

MS = Many Screwups

Justin
June 17, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

Thanks

Admin 6666
June 20, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

mstsc.exe /console /admin

killbill
July 22, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

[quote]I can understand changing the switch to /admin since it's slightly more descriptive..[/quote]

Ofcourse!!! its more logical

If you want to go to the "console" session you have to type "admin".
VERY LOGICAL M$
*&#&!#%^*@%^*)#^(#)

Johan Främst
July 28, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

I wonder what they would do with out users sharing knowledge.... I spent a couple of hours after a upgrade to xp sp3 trying to figure out why the "/console" didn´t work...... And I have a program that doesn´t run as a service on my server 2003.... It´s activated in auto start folder, and for about two weeks I haven´t been able to get to the configuration screen..... Since it been on the console desktop, and the hardware dongel doesn´t allow me to reach it any where else.... But didn´t Microsoft say when they released sp3 "that most of the changes would not be visible to the user".... or did they mean "most of the changes you have to figure out your self beacuse they are invisible".... Any way thanks for the post, it saved me from banging my head against the computer screen................!#%&¤#*^¨

Javier Sola
September 30, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

I wonder if microsoft sometime pay me all the time i spent resolving all the problems that they generate since 1996. Perhaps if they do less features and do it well we lived better. Long life to Windows NT 4.0 where the problem was how to do my business OK, not how to improve microsoft products for doing the work designed for its programmers. I´m MCT, MCSE, MCSA, MCP WINDOWS NT, WINDOWS 2000 AND WINDOWS 2003. My last desire, change my occupation, we are allways beta-testers.
This problem i talk about is for all the software-manufacturers, they think we do our business better, and only carry us to problems for our work.
good luck Beta testers

Thomas Young
October 17, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

You are the man! You saved me form hours of frustration.

Sometimes Microsoft makes me SOOOOO mad. What happened to backward compatibility or making both switches do the same thing?

Doug I
October 18, 2008

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

Kudos to you! What morons at MS. I lost two hours of my life due to this change, before I figured out that something must have changed!

A.G.O.
March 16, 2009

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

Thanks for the tip!

J Williamson
March 23, 2009

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

Thanks for the advice on XP Service Pack 3 changing to /admin ... spent an hour trying to figure out why /console kept hooking into what seemed to be a new RDP session.

Steve
April 17, 2009

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

In my situation I am RDPing into my home Vista Ultimate machine from a work Vista Ulimate machine. How do you manage connections in vista on host? No term services manager?
Somehow I max'ed out my connects which I didn't think was possible on Vista.

BTW.. for those of you that are sick of built-in ms RDP client.. use freebie RD TABS.. it rocks:
http://www.avianwaves.com/Tech/Tools/RDTabs/

-Steve

David
December 18, 2009

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

Thanks for the post. I was going crazy on this one trying to use the /console switch.

Jim
June 16, 2010

# re: Vista SP1: Terminal Services /console switch no longer working

So if you had an mmc with RDC connections saved that had the Connect To Console checked, how do you get them to work now?

Rick Strahl's Weblog