Is there a way to use rdesktop to display a Windows XP desktop on multiple Linux machines simultaneously?

At work we have a small LAN with a Windows XP machine that is our 'server' (just an ordinary XP machine acting as a file server). What I would like to investigate (with an eye towards the future) is using Linux on our 'clients' and letting them access the desktop of the XP machine simultaneously using rdesktop.

Experiments on my little home network have revealed that rdesktop works fine as long as you 'connect' with one Linux box at a time.

Is something like this feasible? Would I need to use something like VNC?

BTW, we're stuck with the XP machine as we use Quickbooks.

I may not have phrased my question correctly, so I'll be happy to provide more information/clarification if needed.

Thanks for any help!

Windows XP doesn't let you do that (have more than one client connected via rdesktop at the same time).

Server versions of Windows support it, however you need the appropriate licensing.

Thanks for the reply!

I was afraid the answer might be something like that but I had to ask.

There's a couple proprietary apps that tweak XP's terminal services to allow more than one simultaneous connection, and there's at least one hack (replacing the Terminal Services DLL with one from before SP2) that you can use to do the same. I can't find the 2 apps I looked at a while ago that do this, but there's tons of links to the DLL hack:
http://www.google.com/search?q=xp+%2...e+simultaneous
http://www.google.com/search?q=xp+%2...e+simultaneous

Even so, I'm not sure you'd be able to have multiple instances of the same user logged into the same sessions(or even multiple sessions), but maybe I'm wrong about that. You can use Junction to symlink different users' Desktop folders so they're all the same, unless permissions get in the way (which I suppose they would).

I would suggest you consider Windows Small Business Server, with Terminal Services enabled. This would allow what you are talking about, at a relative fraction of the cost of a regular Win 2003 server? Look into it, quite interesting the way it's set up.

There are some limitations tho!!! Don't say I didn't warn ya!

Hi,
some time ago someone found a workaround, which consists in changing the terminal servicess DLL in winxp, so enabling different users to be logged in at the same time, and from different locations, using rdesktop.

You can find the explanation here:
http://www.golod.com/2005/10/enablin...-edition-2005/
as well as the modified dll to download.

It worked for me, and i also found something similar for vista.
(I'm not proud but I had to....!)

BTW this lets only one user per session connect with rdesktop,
so if you would like to connect many users at the same time, you should create different accounts for this to work as you need.

Have you considered VNC ?


or depending on the application maybe tight projector from the TightVNC project..

Tight projector appears to be a paid item, but would still be cheaper than MS-TS Client Licensing imho

As I understand it, VNC would not solve the issue... looks like he wants to have multiple users logged in the box and running different apps.

First, I'd like to thank everyone for taking the time to reply!

Although I'm going to do my best to go the Linux route I'm certainly going to keep the links to the XP SP2 hacks for RD.

I've installed a TightVNC server on my XP box (on my home network) and TightVNC clients on two Linux boxes- had no problem connecting to the XP machine, so we could make that work.

After doing a bit more research into the work situation, we might not have to jump through all these hoops after all. Only our office manager uses Quickbooks, so rdesktop will do there. The rest of us could use Linux boxes, so the whole deal may be simpler than I thought. It's just a matter I've finding the OS apps to replace the MS apps and we're just about there.

We'll be on XP for awhile but we're looking ahead to the day when we'll be forced off of it. We'd just like to have the Linux option ready to roll as the Microsoft road, from what I'm reading, might get a little rough.

Thanks again for all the help! BTW, Renan_S2, you're right- that's what I was aiming for. Looking now like it may not work that way.

Ahh the description of "accessing the desktop simultaneously" sounded like the users accessing the SAME desktop session, not different user sessions.

Yeah no real way around using Terminal Services or Citrix..
Windows is lame like that, almost anything you want for the right amount of $$$$


So what applications are you looking to replace/migrate, besides the Quickbooks Accounting app ?

Linux Accounting Applications GnuCash probably being the most well known.. there are several other offerings with quite a few features...Compiere, LedgerSMB, etc..

I do apologize for not stating things a little more clearly. Knew what I wanted to ask, just didn't quite know how to express it.

I think I've got most of the apps covered except for Adobe Acrobat. I installed PDFEdit on a Linux box at home. Definitely an interesting piece of software but not quite ready for prime time. What we may do is use Open Office to edit files then save them as PDFs.

Thanks for the link- it's bookmarked. We'll be setting up a Linux box at work in the next 2-3 weeks and the first thing we'll work on is accounting apps. We may be stuck with Quickbooks though as we're just so far into it, plus there's a great deal of axniety associated with moving to something else.