Concurrent Remote Desktop allows you (the administrator) to simultaneously use a client computer while a standard user is still interactively using it. For IT, this is huge! Imagine never having to kick a person off of their computer because you need to work on it. Concurrent Remote Desktop (CRDP) makes this possible. This guide will cover CRDP setup for Windows 10.
Two Interactive Sessions on Windows 10 v1511
Back in the age of Windows 7, we published the first CRDP setup guide here. If you haven’t read it, do so now – it provides background information and some troubleshooting tips. For those of you that have already read it (or just don’t like prequels), let’s enable CRDP for Windows 10!
Step 1: Download and extract this ZIP file to a network location. Any IT employee who will be using CRDP will need Read/Execute to these files – computer accounts do not need permission to see these.
Step 2: Edit the CRDP.bat file. Change the \\Server\Share\CRDP\ path to your network location. Leave all of the other settings at their default values.
Step 3: Copy the CRDP.bat file to the root of your user profile. To launch a CRDP session, run CRDP ComputerName . This will launch the CRDP.bat file and target it to the remote machine name that you specified. It will then work its way through the install.cmd file to enable CRDP.
Running CRDP from the local user profile.
Caveats and Tips for Using Concurrent Remote Desktop
CRDP is dependent on the client OS that you are running. It works by modifying a few registry keys and replacing the termsrv.dll with one that doesn’t check for a logged on user. It will also enable the RDP firewall rule (if not enabled). You technically only need to run this once per machine but I find it easier to run it anytime that I am connecting to a remote computer.
There are a few things you need to know about CRDP though. First, this package only works on Windows 10 x64 installations. It will should work on any edition (that has RDP built in) and any update version. The important thing is that C:\Windows\System32\termsrv.dll is at version 10.0.10240.16384. Unless Microsoft patches this file in the future, your termsrv.dll should be this version.
The currently supported Windows 10 termsrv.dll version.
Second, this script makes the assumption that you are an administrator on the local machine. If you aren’t, fix that now. Finally, don’t run this against your own machine. Because it allows multiple sessions for the same user, you would never be able to join your original session. If you do need to restore the termsrv.dll file, just delete the existing one and rename the termsrv.dll.old file to termsrv.dll.
In this guide, we configured CRDP for Windows 10 X64 installations. If you have any questions or thoughts, let me know in the comment section below.