Logging into a Windows Server as a Console user Remotely

Its funny, I spent so much time trying to find a solution for this and accidentally my friend Nick emailed me about it. I don’t know how I didn’t find this earlier.

Anyways, the problem stemmed from being unable to connect remotely (RDC) to one of my server2k3 boxes. I needed to modify the software firewall settings, and due to security reasons (whether good or bad I don’t know) I couldn’t administer the firewall to make changes unless I was at the console.

The firewall I am running is Sygate Personal Firewall Pro 5.5 (now owned by Symantec.. ugh!). Its a very efficient software firewall, but the one drawback is being unable to use the gui when remotely logged in using RDC.

So to get around this I had to do the following:

mstsc /v:servernameoraddress /f /console

I did that from my machine (cmd prompt) and it forces the connection as a console connection (even tho it is remote). There you have it, you can now remote Sygate PF Pro 5.5 🙂

Hope this helps anyone out there looking for a solution to this problem, and pissed that Symantec canned everything Sygate had for documentation.