Re: Terminal Services Remote Control

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From: James MacKenzie (zzjmac88_at_mail.com)
Date: 05/07/04 

Date: Sat, 8 May 2004 00:22:16 +0800

I agree

My apologies. However, a comment that many people do concur with is that
much of the help in Microsoft Help is actually quite poorly written. Most of
it is only useful to people when they totally understand something but have
forgotten exactly how to do it. I have had at least 20 people ask me
questions about terminal services such as the question below. If the
programs were written in a more obvious way (not always the case) and the
help was more descriptive - or actually mentioned things that people want to
know, then a huge number of people would spend a lot less time cursing and
spending all night pulling their hair out.

I have had many a frustrating night spent trying to figure something out
which, had there just been a slightly better description in help, wouldn't
have been necessary. Usually, the help files just take you round in circles
never actually giving what you want. Most give detailed explanations about
how to actually open a control panel up by clicking on the start button etc
when actually most users know that. It then stops exactly at the bit that
you need to know!

Perhaps you could now help me to understand how actually to log onto a
session. What do you mean by "logged on to the consol"? Do you mean logged
on locally to the server or do you mean logged on through terminal services
as I'm not sure I understand you.

If you mean logged on locally, then no, I was not logged on to the consol. I
have read all the articles in the document that you gave the link to and
still I have failed to see how to log on to a session. It should be as
simple as right clicking on a session and choosing remote control. However,
my remote control option is still grayed out and I am now spending yet
another night trying to figure the damn thing out.

The article tells me how to configure, disable and actually use remote
control but NOWHERE does it say what the hell is wrong if your REMOTE
CONTROL is GRAYED OUT.

An example of extremely bad help is Group Policy. I spent ages trying to
work out why Group Policy would not always work. Changes would be made and
the changes would not be reflected on the clients. I tried everything. I put
help messages out and asked on the newsgroups. No-one could offer an
explanation. The cause of the problem was the DNS Server address on the
network card on the client. It wasn't pointing to the DNS server on the
Domain but to the ISP's DNS servers. Now everything else virtually works
with this setting and around 1 in 2 win2000 servers I come across are
configured this way. Now, the one most fundamental thing about GP is exactly
that the DNS servers on the NIC are correctly configured because GP uses DNS
to update the clients. It does not use NetBIOS or anything else. Nowhere
have I ever seen any indication anywhere about this. I have since helped
countless people who have the same problem. To me this is as fundamental as
putting gas in a car to make it run. Surely, it should say something in the
help files about this! I have over 100 examples so I think I am possible
justified in being pissed off sometimes with he quality of help files!!

If you are not now too pissed off with me, I would appreciate some help on
these damn TS. You can guarantee that countless people will end up
benefiting from it, not just one rather frustrated individual.

Regards

James

"Patrick Rouse [MVP]" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0F63507F-B9C8-4A20-A594-463EFF7F280B@microsoft.com...
> You MUST be logged onto a terminal services session to remote control
another session. This can't be done while logged onto the console.
>
> Some of the "monkeys" you refer to may actually read these threads so keep
that in mind. Asking politely for help goes farther than calling people
names.
>
> Terminal Server how tos & FAQ:
> http://www.workthin.com/tshta.htm
>
> Patrick Rouse
> Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
> http://www.workthin.com
>
> ----- James MacKenzie wrote: -----
>
> I have two Win2K Servers set up - one is a DC. I have Terminal
Services set
> up for remote administration (for licencing). I can use the client
from
> another workstation and have no problems accessing both servers via
Terminal
> Services. However, what I cannot figure out is how to use the remote
> control. It should be obvious and I have tried everything. I enter
the
> Terminal Services manager and can see the sessions. However, when I
right
> click, the remote control option is grayed out. I cannot figure out
how to
> get it to activate.
>
> The useless MS help just says to right click it. The monkeys who
wrote the
> help never figured out that sometimes it may not be available!
>
> I have admin rights to the servers, domain admin on the network and
still
> nothing. I cannot see how it has anything to do with permissions.
Remote
> control is set on server terminal services configuration and the
connection
> is set to allow remote control. In fact all the default settings are
there.
> I have admin rights to both machines and can access the server via
TS. I
> have tried with multiple users accessing the same server using TS and
still,
> not enabled remote control option to right click
>
> Any suggestions would prevent me from pulling all my hair out!!
>
> James
>
>
>

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