Accessing the console session on Windows Terminal Services from OS X
This is a sort of note-for-myself post. Just today I needed to use Remote Desktop to jump onto a Windows 2003 Server of a client. Only problem – all the client licenses were blocked and I couldn’t get in. Out of office hours. Grrr. Solution: use the console session (session 0). By the way – can ANYONE explain me why it’s called console session? I mean – where’s the console? It’s still a UI with all the Windows stuff. Can I haz shell please, Microsoft?
Anyway: from Windows to Windows that’s _fairly_ easy to do, you’d just use something like:
mstsc -v:abc.com -console
One could say now “Unfortunately I’m using OS X and don’t have mstsc…” – I’d rather express it in a positive way: “Fortunately I’m using OS X and the Remote Desktop Connection for Windows DOES support hooking into the console session.” (took me a while to find out though). It’s actually quite easy, just add /CONSOLE to the server name or IP address you’re going to connect to.
For example: 192.168.1.1/CONSOLE – and you’re in.
