This is a licensing issue. W/o purchasing Terminal Services CALs you're limited just as you've seen to two (2) RDP connections.
(You can sort of cheat and get one more session, BTW, by using the "/admin" or "/console" switch on the Terminal Services client.)
Question
After the Remote Desktop Session Host server (Terminal Server) runs for a while, there are many sessions marked as active in the Remote Desktop Services Manager (Terminal Services Manager). How to avoid this situation?
Answer
To reduce the number of active sessions, you may adjust the terminal server configuration based on the business requirement.
Configuration #1: Remote Desktop timeout settings
By using this configuration or policy setting, you can set the timeout limit for Idle session and Active session; meanwhile, you can end a session if the session times out.
1. Open the property dialog for RDP-Tcp connection in Remote Desktop Services Manager.
2. In the Sessions tab, you can configure the following settings:
· Active Session Limit
· Idle session limit
· Action when session limit is reached or connection is broken
· End a disconnected session
Configuration #2: Restrict each user to a single session
By using this configuration or policy setting, each user can only maintain one session to the certain terminal server; when another session is started by the same user, the original one will lose the connection. In that way, the total number of possible active sessions won’t exceed the total remote users. You can implement this method in 3 levels:
· RDP-Tcp configuration
Edit Settings – Restrict each user to a single session: Yes
Edit Settings – Restrict each user to a single session: Yes
· Local Group Policy
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services)\Remote Desktop Services Session Host(Terminal Server)\Connections\Restrict Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services) users to a single remote session: Enabled;
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services)\Remote Desktop Services Session Host(Terminal Server)\Connections\Restrict Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services) users to a single remote session: Enabled;
· Group Policy:
Similar location as above, depending on the specific OS version of the domain controller.
Similar location as above, depending on the specific OS version of the domain controller.
Configuration #3: Configure keep-alive connection interval
By specifying the minutes that the TS holds a remote session actually disconnected, the server will detect the session status after each period. The session that are actually offline will be changed to Disconnected status:
To implement this solution, there are two levels of ways:
To implement this solution, there are two levels of ways:
· Local Group Policy:
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services)\Remote Desktop Services Session Host(Terminal Server)\Connections\Configure keep-alive connection interval: Enabled and value specified
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services)\Remote Desktop Services Session Host(Terminal Server)\Connections\Configure keep-alive connection interval: Enabled and value specified
· Group Policy:
Similar location as above, depending on the specific OS version of the domain controller.
Similar location as above, depending on the specific OS version of the domain controller.
More Information
216783 You cannot completely disconnect a Terminal Server connection
Applies to
Windows Server 2008 Standard
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
For Windows Server 2003 :
Start" => "Administration Tools" => "Terminal Services Configuration"
Opened up the "Properties" of "RDP-tcp" in the connections tree and selected the "Network Adapter" tabREFERENCES
