Remote Desktop Services can be very useful tool for IT Pro. Day by day more companies swap the Local Workstations in Thin Clients and users connected in Remote Desktop Servers in a farm or standalone base on the size of the company.
Sometimes can be difficult as IT Pro to support the users with Remote Desktop Connection. When a user call you must ask him for the password , find the username , most of the times the password will be wrong .
After 3,4 times finally connect in Remote Desktop session of the user to check his error.
Windows Server 2012 R2 has a feature that can shadow the user session. However this removed from Windows Server 2012.
Today i would like to show you ho can use this feature and be your favorite tool in Remote Desktop Servers.
First of all Session Shadow works only in Windows Server 2012 R2 with Remote Desktop Session Host Role installed.
Try with GUI
So after has install Remote Desktop Session Host in Windows Server 2012 R2 and has create the Collection then follow the steps to use Session Shadow.
- Connect in Remote Desktop Session Host Server
- Open Server Manager
- Click in Remote Desktop Services from the left side.
- Below of the Collections find the name of the Collection that you have create for the Remote Desktop Users.
- In the right side you can see all the users that are connected in the specific Collection.
- Right click in the user that you want to connect remotely and click Shadow.
- As you can see you have some options for the Shadow Connection.
With View you can only View the Session of the user without can do any change
With Control you can take full Control of the session.
- Last option is the prompt for user consent. By default you can't use the Shadow without user consent because it's enable in Group Policy. If you try you will get the following error.
- Now when select the option that you want to use between View and Control when click OK .Then user will get the following message in his monitor.
- Of course you must have inform the user to accept the request.
Try with Powershell
Of course you have the option to use Powershell for Session Shadow.
How can start?
- First of all we must determine the Session that we want to connect.
- Type the command to see all the sessions in the Server
Get-RDUserSession | ft Username, UnifiedSessionId, HostServer, ApplicationType
- When you find the user that you want to connect use the mstsc to create the shadow session.
- Type mstsc :/shadow: \control OR
mstsc :/shadow: \view
That's it. It will open the Remote Desktop Connection in the user that you have select.
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If you want to shadow the RDS Server console [session 0] in an RDS Server session, and you do not want to be prompted for permission, set the local Group Policy on the server that is running Remote Desktop Services.
To shadow other sessions, in the RDP-TCP Properties dialog box, on the Remote Control tab, click to clear the Require user's permission checkbox. This does not affect the console session.
To remote control the console with no prompt for approval:
- Open the Group Policy Editor [gpedit.msc] on the server that is running Remote Desktop Services.
- Under Computer Configuration, expand Administrative Templates, expand Windows Components, and then click Remote Desktop Services.
- Under the Remote Desktop Session Host > Connections, right-click Sets rules for remote control of Remote Desktops Services user sessions and click Edit.
- Select Enabled. Under Options, select Full Control without the user's permission.
- Click OK and quit Group Policy Editor.
Once this has been set, you can go to the user's session in the ControlUp Real-Console, right-click and select Remote Desktop Services\Shadow Session.
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What's NextHello,
The feature I miss MOST about Windows Server 2003, 2003R2, 2008, 2008 R2 was remote control another remote desktop session. In task manager, select user and remote control their session so TWO people could set up a server remotely so I could teach someone else how to set up a server or have someone else proof my work.
I thought I read that feature was coming back with Windows Server 2012 but I can't do that.
Can someone please let me know if I read wrong or if there is an additional step to allow this behavior? I've enabled remote desktop and multiple logons for a user but can't find how to remote control another remote desktop user.
- Article
- 09/24/2021
- 2 minutes to read
This article describes how to shadow a Terminal Server session without a prompt for approval.
Applies to: Windows Server 2012 R2
Original KB number: 292190
If you would like to shadow the Terminal Server console [session 0] in a Terminal Server session, and you don't want to be prompted for permission, set the local Group Policy on the server that is running Terminal Services.
To shadow other sessions, on the RDP-TCP Properties dialog box, on the Remote Control tab, click to clear the require users permission check box. It doesn't affect the console session.
To remote control the console with no prompt for approval:
Open Group Policy Editor [Gpedit.msc] on the server that is running Terminal services.
Under Computer Configuration, expand Administrative templates, expand Windows Components, and then select Terminal Services.
Right-click Sets rules for remote control of Terminal Services user sessions, and then select Properties.
Select the Enabled option.
Under Options, select Full Control without user's permission.
Select OK, and then quit Group Policy Editor. To update the local policy immediately afterward, go to a command prompt and run the following command:
gpupdate /force
Now, if you establish a Remote Desktop session, you can connect to the console and remote control it by going to a command prompt and using the following command:
Shadow 0You shouldn't be prompted on the console for permission.