How to enable Remote Desktop on a computer remotely

Remote desktop is a very cool tool offered by Windows. It runs as a Microsoft Terminal Services (MSTSC) in Windows and provides administrators and helpdesk technicians with a way to connect to a computer remotely. Of course there are better third party tools available that allow both the user at the desktop and the technician to see the screen at the same time, but specifically for servers and unattended computers at remote locations, this is the best tool as it comes with the operating system.

By default, remote desktop is not enabled in any version of the Windows. You have to go in and manually enable the remote desktop by checking the check box in the Remote tab of System Properties dialog Window. This is great for computers you have access to, but what about computers that are in remote locations and it's not feasible to travel to that place. Fortunately you can enable remote desktop remotely by editing the registry remotely from your own computer. The pre-requisite for this is that the Remote Registry service should be running on the remote computer (Fear not! The remote registry service by default is set to start automatically for Windows).

To enable Remote Desktop remotely by using the registry

1. On any computer that is running a version of Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP Professional, click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. On the File menu, click Connect Network Registry.
3. In the Select Computer dialog box, type the computer name and then click Check Names.
4. In the Enter Network Password dialog box, provide Domain Admins credentials for the domain of the server, and then click OK.
5. After the computer name resolves, click OK.
6. In the computer node that appears in the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server.
7. In the console tree, click Terminal Server and then, in the details pane, double-click fDenyTSConnections.
8. In the Edit DWORD Value box, in Value data, type 0, and then click OK.

Contrary to what is documented on the Microsoft site and elsewhere, this change does not require a reboot. I have tested it on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 and found that remote desktop is enabled as soon as I make this change in the registry.