Wednesday, March 19, 2008

All my Remote Desktop sessions are taken, how can I login remotely to Windows 2003?

When trying to connect to your Windows 2003 server remotely, you may receive the following error.

"The terminal server has exceeded the maximum number of allowed connections"

When your server is configured for "Administration Mode", this error is by design. A quick way around this is to connect using the /console switch in Remote Desktop.

Example connect to:

  • yourserver.com /console
  • or open Remote Desktop by going to
  • Start - Run and Type
  • mstsc /console
  • Then in the Connect window just enter yourserver.com


This will allow you to connect to the actual console of the server and reset the offending terminal services remote connections.

This is also a good tip for installing applications that will not allow you to install them via Remote Desktop Connection.

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