windows 2003: RDP to local console
i encountered an oddity today for the first time. most of my experience with windows 2003 is based upon windows 2003 R2…so that’s probably why i’ve never seen this before. in the non-R2 release when you try to RDP to the local console user’s session it initiates a separate session. doesn’t seem like a big deal right? well it is because you essentially get a blank screen and no desktop.
i tried messing around with various RDP client settings to no avail. eventually found out that in this windows server release, you need to specify the computer/IP address in the RDP client and append “/admin” at the end. apparently, in even older RDP client releases this switch was “/console”.