Scott Blomquist, Tribal Librarian

Stupid Remote Desktop tricks

Stupid Remote Desktop trick #1

  1. Connect to a remote machine using Remote Desktop.
  2. In device manager, right-click on your network card and choose “Disable“.
  3. Kick yourself for being so stupid, go to the machine's console (hopefully it's within walking distance), and re-enable your network card.

Stupid Remote Desktop trick #2

  1. Connect to a remote machine using Remote Desktop.
  2. Press Ctrl-Alt-End, and choose to shut down your machine. (It seems that Windows Server 2003 warns that you may be shooting yourself in the foot, but Windows XP Pro doesn't.)
  3. Kick yourself for being so stupid, go to the machine's console (hopefully it's within walking distance), and turn the machine back on.

Stupid Remote Desktop trick #3 (most recently discovered, and all-time favorite)

  1. Connect to a remote machine using Remote Desktop.
  2. Get prompted to change your password while logging in (i.e. log in while it's nearing its expiration date).
  3. After typing your old password, but before typing your new password, accidentally hit Enter instead of Tab.
  4. Windows will congratulate you on your new password.
  5. Windows will tell you that you can't log in because you have a blank password.
  6. Kick yourself for being so stupid, go to the machine's console (hopefully it's within walking distance), and change your password to something that's not blank.
  7. Set group policy to prevent blank passwords.
Published Sunday, June 27, 2004 6:25 PM by TribalLibrarian

Comments

 

Alex Barnett said:

lol!
June 28, 2004 12:28 AM
 

Simon said:

I imagine problems when installing or turning on a firewall too!

(Never done this personally, but it seems like it'll cause problems)

For #2: If you set up wake on lan you can bring the console back up so long as it powers off.

Oh that's a reminder... Now where's that networking guys blog...

June 28, 2004 1:20 AM
 

Ilya Haykinson said:

I somehow managed to execute Stupid Desktop Trick #1. Except for then I had to drive 30 minutes to the data center at Downtown LA :-)
June 28, 2004 11:12 AM
 

TrackBack said:

My first linker?
June 28, 2004 11:23 AM
 

Martin said:

Hahaha. Been there, done that to all of them except number 3. 8)
July 15, 2004 2:47 AM
 

remote desktop no password said:

June 1, 2008 12:50 AM
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