Monthly Archives: April 2009

Enabling Remote Desktop (RDP) on Windows Vista Home Premium

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Thanks to the guys at The Green Button forums, Vista Home Premium users can now also enjoy an oft-missed feature; RDP. This currently works with SP1, but SP2 isn’t far off so expect Microsoft to close this loophole again.

Below are some instructions found on the forum, and the rest of the process that I followed:

  1. Download patched DLL
  2. Run a Command Prompt as an Administrator, and run the following commands:
    1. takeown /a /f %SystemRoot%\System32\termsrv.dll
    2. icacls %SystemRoot%\System32\termsrv.dll /Grant Administrators:F
  3. Stop the Terminal Services service (Windows Key + R, services.msc)
  4. Rename the original termsrv.dll (in %systemroot%\system32) to termsrv.dll.bak
  5. Copy the patched dll into place
  6. Run Registry Editor (Windows Key + R, regedit)
  7. Find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server
  8. Change the following 2 items:
    1. fDenyTSConnections – New value: 0
    2. fSingleSessionPerUser – New value: 0
  9. Start the Terminal Services service

Below is a screen shot of it working on my home PC.

Don’t contact me for help in getting this running, or if this procedure breaks your PC.

If you’re not keen on doing this, an excellent alternative is LogMeIn’s free remote desktop solution.

Vista_Home_RDP

How to install a Windows-CA-Signed Certificate on VMWare Server 2.0x

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  1. Make a backup of /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.crt and rui.key
  2. Generate a new server key: openssl genrsa -out rui.key 2048
  3. Generate a CSR: openssl req -new -key rui.key -out server.csr
  4. Go to the Certificate Services web interface on one of your DCs, and select “Request a Certificate”
    1. Select “advanced certificate request”
    2. Select “Submit a certificate request by using a base-64-encoded CMC or PKCS #10 file, or submit a renewal request by using a base-64-encoded PKCS #7 file.”
    3. Paste the CSR text into the “Saved Request” field, and select “Web Server”, and Submit the request
    4. Select “Base 64 encoded”, and “Download certificate”
  5. Transfer the certificate to the Linux box running VMWare Server
  6. Copy/rename the new certificate (certnew.cer) over rui.crt
  7. Do a “service vmware restart”
  8. Voila! A trusted certificate. No more web browser/VMWare Client messages about invalid certificates