Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fast User Switching on Windows XP with VNC?

Posted by Cliff on from the why-doesn't-it-work dept.

A not-so Anonymous Coward asks: "I have searched the web for links on how to make VNC work with Windows XP fast user switching, and all I have seen is people saying that they cannot get it to work. I would now like to ask the Slashdot community to give it their shot, and see if they cannot find a way to make your standard VNC utilities cooperate with Windows XP fast user switching. For those who don't know what the problem is; when using fast user switching, if you switch users (without logging out) from the first user to log on then VNC comes up with a blank screen. Hopefully someone can come up with a fix for this." It sounds like (and I might be way off base here)Windows isn't necessarily running multiple desktops for its fast user switching, and once the switch occurs from the user running the VNC process, that VNC then somehow loses rights to the desktop. It would be interesting to note if VNC sessions will work once the desktop is switched back. Has anyone else tried getting this to work? Have you run into the same problems, or were you able to find a solution?

8 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Lastest Version by Deleted · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was having the same problem on one of my WindowsXP machines. Upgrading to the latest realvnc seemed to fix it up just fine though.

    Maybe you should upgrade your software before you whine to /. about it..

    1. Re:Lastest Version by reynaert · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, on my system the latest version of RealVNC (3.3.7) still has this problem. Maybe you're using a different VNC server?

  2. Why not use in the built-in Remote Desktop? by jpsowin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In XP Pro, Remote Desktop is built in--which is a lot faster and smoother than VNC, plus it just works good.

    And if you're using VNC because you want to access the XP machine from linux, then just emulate the Windows98 Remote Desktop software M$ offers for free with WINE or Crossover Office (which I have had great success with in general).

    1. Re:Why not use in the built-in Remote Desktop? by Rayban · · Score: 4, Informative

      Or use rdesktop:

      http://www.rdesktop.org/

      --
      æeee!
    2. Re:Why not use in the built-in Remote Desktop? by wonkamaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually it could very well be in compliance with Microsoft licensing. Consider the situation in which you dual-boot, the PC is licensed but there is no way of transferring that license to the Linux partition (or even to another Windows computer should you decommission the PC for that matter).

      Considering that TS CAL licensing is based on user (but enforced per computer) if you have a license for a Windows computer you are licensed for Linux. There's just no way of telling the Terminal server that you are. With rdesktop there is. Can it be used to "pirate"? Sure. But since M$ doesn't provide a way of transferring the licenses (without calling their support and pleading your case anyway) and provides no way of indicating that you're licensed on multiple desktops even with recent service packs, I for one am quite glad that rdesktop includes the capability.

    3. Re:Why not use in the built-in Remote Desktop? by jsse · · Score: 4, Informative

      Oh, and by the way, there are also native Linux Windows Remote Desktop clients. My brother uses it at his job, and it's also bundled with probably multiple distros... I believe Mandrake 9.1 has it.

      It's called tsclient.

      In Debian:
      apt-get install tsclient

      In Gentoo:
      emerge tsclient

      Mandrake and Redhat has it in their distro, too.

      The downside is that you must install Terminal Server in the XP, but it works exactly the same as Windows' terminal client and performs much better than VNC.

  3. Re:Makes me wonder by pocopoco · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is VNC for PPC, but if your connecting to a WinXP box it's better to use Microsoft's own Terminal Services Client for PPC instead. It's significantly faster, although not cross platform, of course.

  4. Re:I don't use XP, but... by HereAllNight · · Score: 5, Informative

    I concur with this.

    As I understand it, Fast User Switching simply keeps other users' processes alive (but suspended) while a user at the console starts up his/her own processes. If you're running vncserver manually, from the Start Menu or as a "Run" item in the Registry, going back to the Welcome Screen will cause vncserver to be suspended. Therefore, vncserver must be run as a service. Most VNC distros make it very easy to do this.

    The big problem is the Welcome Screen, which must be enabled in order to use Fast User Switching. We know that VNC works fine with the Explorer shell, but my guess is that the Welcome Screen does something to thwart non-MS remote utilities. It could be a matter of permissions; that everybody (including the vncserver service) must have the same priveleges or be in the same group as the Welcome Screen process.

    Personally, I use RemotelyAnywhere and GoToMyPC to access Windows machines over the Internet. If you're doing this only on a private network, then no worries. But if this goes across any public networks like the Internet, I strongly suggest finding a solution that provides more secure authentication at the very least.

    Since XP does offer RDP, I'd tend to use RDP before I tried VNC. Is there any reason why n-sAC must use VNC?