Tall Mike

Windows XP Multiuser Remote Desktop

An interesting feature, on Windows XP, is the ability to be remote controlled from a second PC: the so called “Remote Desktop Connection” can be used from a dial-up connection or in a local ethernet network.

XP (and Media Center Edition), differently than the Server versions of Windows, has a limit: a single PC can be controlled by a single “local” user (the “real” person on place), OR a single “remote” user. If someone logs into the computer from remote, the local user is disconnected. The following procedure deactivates this block and allows multiple persons to connect and to use a single computer from remote.
Very useful, for example, if you’ve a very strong PC and you want your wife/friend/brother to use an old computer like a “terminal”
to use applications on the new one, at the same time of you. Other
application of the same technique: you’re at work and you want to
connect to your home PC, without blocking your wife that is using the same computer to check email

UPDATE: it seems that XP is limited, also after
this modification, to 3 concurrent users. So don’t waste time trying to
raise the maximum number of connections over three (see step 5)
because, at this time, I don’t think there’s a way to use the same XP
PC with more than 3 persons at the same time (e.g. a local user and 2
remote users).

This procedure is an “hack”: do it at your own risk:

STEP 1
Start your Windows in Safe Mode (tap on F8 first of the Windows Loading Splash Screen);
click on “My Computer” with right mouse button and choose “Properties”;
go to “Remote” tab and uncheck “Allow users to connect remotely to this computer” (if it’s already unchecked, just do nothing);
click OK.

STEP 2
Go to Start -> Control Panel;
open “Administrative Tools” and then “Services”;
double click “Terminal Services”, in the list;
choose “Disabled” for “Startup Type” option;
click OK.

STEP 3
Go to C:\windows\system32\dllcache;
rename the termsrv.dll file to termsrv.original or another name you like;
copy into the folder this unrestricted old version of termsrv.dll;
go to C:\windows\system32 (the upper folder of the current one);
do the same operation: rename termserv.dll also here, and put another copy of the file I linked above.

STEP 4
Click Start, then “Run…”, type “regedit” (without quotes) and press ENTER;
navigate in the Windows Registry Tree to reach this path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Licensing Core;
click with right mouse button on blank space in the right part of the
registry window, choose “New” > DWORD, name the new key
“EnableConcurrentSessions” (without quotes), then edit it and set its
value to 1;
close the editor.

STEP 5
Click Start, then “Run…”, type “gpedit.msc” (without quotes) and press ENTER;
open Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Terminal Services;
double click “Limit number of connections”, choose “Enabled” and set
the maximum number of concurrent connections you want to allow (2 or
more), then Restart Windows in normal mode.

STEP 6
Go back to Remote tab of My Computer’s properties (see step 1) and activate “Allow users to connect remotely to this computer”;
Go back to “Terminal services” in “Services” (see step 2) and set its “Startup type” to “Manual”

Now restart Windows. Your operating system should be ready to accept multiple remote desktop connections
Remember that you’ve to prepare different Windows Users for every
“phisical” user that want to connect to your desktop, to autenticate
with separate logins/passwords. User accounts configuration is
reachable in the control panel, and the list of users that can connect
to the PC is editable in the remote tab of My computer.

Technorati Tags: Windows XP, Multiuser, Remote Desktop

Technorati Tags: Google Toolbar, Firefox

One of cool features in Live mail desktop

Quote

A
picture is worth a thousand words

And we want to make it easy for our customers to share those pictures.
You’ll discover that with Windows Live Mail Desktop (Windows Live Mail Desktop) sharing
pictures is super easy.

The common situation now? (at least for me )

I take a TON of pictures. Don’t you? Digital cameras make it almost too
easy to take 100, 200, sometimes 500 pictures in just a few days. Now, I am not
suggesting that you should share all of those; I am sure some of those should be
kept private . But you always have at least a handful that you want to send to
your friends and family. Right now it is a BIG pain.

• First I have to decide how many pictures I *can* send (note: not should but
  can send—2 very different things) because some mail applications have a low,
  low, low limit on attachments (seriously? Do I really have to choose between my
  10 pictures of the most beautiful sunset ever?…right now YES)

• Second, I feel bad for my friends and family who’ll receive the pictures.
  How much fun is it to go through each one, double-click to view, close, repeat.

• There is no way for me to add any funny captions—how am I expected to
  explain why I have a sleeping mask on my mouth?
  

• If I don’t go with the attachment option, then I do snapfish or ofoto or
  another online service—also a big pain for those who aren’t members of snapfish.
  After all, why should my friends become members of *my* club just to look at
  some pictures?

How are we going to make it better?

We are (re)introducing Photo E-mail—a super duper easy way to share photos
(for those of you who use MSN Premium client this will be very familiar).

As soon as you insert a few pictures they show up in the message with
an easy way to add some (funny) captions. We’ve also decided to give you a few
fun and productive tools to make your pictures truly yours:

• you’ll be able to add some borders
  

• change pictures to black and white
  
• change background color
  
• and even auto-correct.

When designing this we debated a lot of what we should offer and decided to
start with these tools until we hear more user feedback. We don’t ever want to
be a full photo editing tool, but we do want to make things easier for our
customers (Thank you Heather for making the tough calls; Heather was the
original PM on the feature). So let us know what you think!

On sending these pictures, the photos will be uploaded to our servers and
smaller versions will be placed inside the message (Thank you Dare, Richard, and
Jura from the storage team on making this happen!). This will make sure that
your friends and family don’t get huge messages that fill out their inboxes. In
fact, this is what they’ll see:

 

If your friends want to view bigger versions
of the photos, all they have to do is hit “Play slideshow�?. This is
where are our friends from the Spaces team come in. They’ve created an
awesome viewer for your friends and family to enjoy your pictures
(Thank you DeEtte, Greg, and James).

 

Phew…that’s about it. The last thing to say is that we want to hear
from you. What else do you do with photos? How do you share them now?
What can we do to make it easier and more fun for you to share photos?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Technorati Tags: Windows Live Mail Desktop, Live Mail Desktop, Live Mail Desktop beta

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 now is Available as a Free Download from its home page.

It includes the full version of Virtual Server 2005 R2
Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition (32-bit)
Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition (64-bit)

It also can be order on CD.

Apr 3, Microsoft also annouced the Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 will support linux, including

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 (update 6)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (update 6)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
• Novell’s SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9
• Red Hat Linux 7.3
• Red Hat Linux 9.0
• Novell’s SuSE Linux 9.2
• Novell’s SuSE Linux 9.3
• Novell’s SuSE Linux 10.0

Technorati Tags: microsoft, virtual server, Virtual Server 2005 R2, linux, virtualization