Connecting To Server Console In Terminal Services

This was pointed out to me by my colleague Carlos, If you want to connect to the server console of a Windows 2003 server through terminal services (if you don't know what this means, it's the same as if you connected a keyboard, mouse and monitor to the server and logged in directly from in front of the box) you can execute the following:

If you want to connect to a terminal server via the command prompt you can do so by typing the following: “mstsc -v:servername /F –console”. ‘mstsc’ represents the remote desktop connection executable file, -v specifies which server to connect to, /F is for full screen mode, and –console to indicate that you want to connect to the console.

That's a pretty handy little trick as some applications will only run from the console and many popup messages only display on the console.

If that doesn’t work try: mstsc -v:servername -console