X11 Feature for MS Windows

Question

Hi,

For decades, X11 has provided the possibility to have many virtual desktops that can be accessed by different people from different machines. The virtual desktops are thus independent of the real physical desktop.

I'm wondering whether there is something similar already on MS windows OS. I would think this could be easily done if virtual desktop managers could make the virtual desktops ---that they already maintain in memory--- available to remote desktop applications.

My needs come from the following situation. Often time, I have to provide support to remote users. In many cases, the support would take hours. Unfortunately, during this time, the user's computer is completely control by us and the user can't do anything. Now my question is whether there is a solution that would allow us to work and repair the user's computer on one virtual desktop while the user is actually working on the other virtual desktop attached the physical one.

Any input would be much appreciated.

Klaus.

Answer 1

Remote Desktop, from Microsoft is what you are looking for.

Answer 2

Workstation builds of Windows (with the notable exception of Media Center Edition, to support extender devices) are hardcoded to prevent concurrent sessions -- I suspect this is one of the "technical limitations" the license expressly prohibits working around. That said, there are very unofficial third party binary patches that modify the Terminal Services code to remove the limitation.

Answer 3

The desktop versions of Windows are artificially limited by Microsoft to one desktop session at a time. They want you to spend the big bucks on Terminal Server if you want to have multiple sessions.

Answer 4

There are hacks for various versions of windows that allow concurrent Remote Desktop sessions. Here's one for Windows 7, but similar exist for vista and XP.