If you already use Remote Desktop Services with MyWorkspace, you might have noticed, that you can only have one RemoteApp open at a time. This is because by default, Windows Server 2012 allows only a single Remote Desktop session for each user. This article describes how to enable (and disable) multiple sessions.
This way you can use multiple RemoteApps in different tabs at the same time. After completing this how-to you will have your Remote Desktop Services configured to allow multiple sessions. Hence allowing your users to use multiple RemoteApps in MyWorkspace at the same time.Summary
Goal
Enable Multiple RDP Sessions
Disable Multiple RDP Sessions
- Log into the server, where the Remote Desktop Services are installed.
- Open the start screen (press the Windows key) and type gpedit.msc and open it.
- Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Connections.
- Set Restrict Remote Desktop Services user to a single Remote Desktop Services session to Enabled.
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a protocol developed by Microsoft, that allows a user to access remote systems graphically. The default Windows servers allow only one remote desktop session at a time. But, in some cases, we are required to enable remote desktops for multiple users to allow access at a time.
You can achieve this by making little changes to the system registry keys. Once the changes are done, multiple users can connect to your system using the RDP client. You can also limit the number of users who can connect at a time.
In this tutorial, we will discuss enabling and disabling multiple remote desktop sessions in Windows servers in 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 2019 and 2022.
Follow the below steps to enable multiple remote desktop sessions on a Windows system.
- Log in to the Windows system.
- Open the start screen (press the Windows key) and type “Edit group policy” or “gpedit.msc”, and launch it.
- Navigate to Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Remote Desktop Services >> Remote Desktop Session Host >> Connections.
- Double click on “Set Restrict Remote Desktop Services user to a single Remote Desktop Services session and set this to Disabled.
- Next, double click on “Limit number of connections” and set the RD Maximum Connections allowed to 999999. But, just use 2 sessions that is free with Windows license but to allow more than 2 session required CAL license.
Below is the screenshots of changes being made:
Disable Multiple RDP Sessions
To disbale the multiple remote desktop sessions, follow below instructions:
- Log in to the Windows system.
- Open the start screen (press the Windows key) and type “Edit group policy” or “gpedit.msc”, and launch it.
- Navigate to Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Remote Desktop Services >> Remote Desktop Session Host >> Connections.
- Double click on “Set Restrict Remote Desktop Services user to a single Remote Desktop Services session and set this to “Enabled.
Wrap Up
This tutorial helped you to enable for disable multiple remote desktop sessions on a single Windows system. That is useful for the teams working on the same remote systems.