Home | Troubleshooting |  Quick Setup  |  Cisco How to  |  Data Recovery  |  Forums   | Blog | IT Exam Practice | Services  | About Us | Chicagotech MVP  | Search  | Contact Us  |               Select a Topic VPN How To Network How To Remote Access How To Windows How To Internet How To New Topics    Laptop for rent: $35 per day plus $10 for additional day

How to Use Terminal Services Manager

Nuo Yan

In the Windows Server 2003, Microsoft provides a graphical MMC (Microsoft Management Console) interface for systems administrators to manage Terminal Services. It is called Terminal Services Manager. 

Terminal Services Manager not only can do basic administrative operations on terminal services sessions but also can control sessions and manage processes, etc.

Start Terminal Services Manager

To start Terminal Services Manager, click “Start”, click “Administrative Tools”, then click “Terminal Services Manager”. Figure 1 shows the main MMC interface of Terminal Services Manager.

Basic Administrative Operations

 1. Connect to / Disconnect from a session:

To connect to a session, click “Users” or “Sessions” tab on the right pane, right click the server’s name of the session you want to connect to, and then click “Connect”.

To disconnect from a session, click “Users” or “Sessions” tab on the right pane, right click the server’s name of the session you want to disconnect from, and then click “Disconnect”.

2. Send message to users:

In the pop-up dialog box (Figure 2), enter text and click “OK” to send to the user.

3. End a user’s session:

The administrator can end a user’s terminal session for various reasons. To log the user off from the terminal session, click “Users” tab on the right pane, right click the server name of the user’s session need to be logged off, and then click “log off”. Click “OK” whenever you are promoted to confirm the action.

4. Reset a session:

The administrator can also reset but not end a user’s terminal session. By resetting, all programs the user runs will be closed, all unsafe files in the session will be lost.  To reset a session, click “Users” or “Sessions” tab on the right pane, right click the server’s name of the user’s session you want to reset, and then click “Reset”. Click “OK” whenever you are prompted to confirm the action.

More Advanced Administrative Operations

1. Remote control a user’s session:

As a systems administrator, sometimes you may want to remote control a specific user’s terminal session. At this time the user can watch all the operations you do in the session. This is quite like the “Application Sharing” in MSN Messenger or Netmeeting or “Remote Assistance” in Windows XP.

To do this in the Terminal Service Manager, click “Users” or “Sessions” tab on the right pane, right lick the server’s name of the user’s session you want to take control of, and then click “Remote Control”.

A Remote Control dialog box will pop-up asking you to specify a key set to end the remote control session. You can’t actually begin controlling the session until the user confirms to release control to you on their side.

2. View the processes information in the sessions:

The administrator can view all the processes from all sessions running on the server by clicking on the computer name on the left pane and then click “Processes” tab on the right pane (Figure 3). The administrator also can view processes information in a single session by clicking the session name under the “The computer” tree, and then the processes information will be listing on the right pane (Figure 4).

Post your questions, comments, feedbacks and suggestions

Contact a consultant

Related Topics

How to manage Terminal Services through commend-line tools

Terminal Services not only can be managed through Graphical User Interface (Terminal Services Manager MMC), but can also be managed through command line tools....