Always Get Better

Since Microsoft updated their Windows Server 2003 software, administrators relying on their Remote Desktop Connection are having difficulties rebooting.

When connected via RDP, if you reboot normally you will be disconnected from the server and all will appear well.  Sometimes, however, the server won’t actually reboot!  Furthermore, it will block all incoming connections to RDP, and to everything else.  The only means of recovery is rebooting from the console.

Solution

It is possible to use our knowledge of the command line to perform a proper system reboot using the shutdown command.

The relevant switches are:

/f - Force the shutdown even if other users are connected

/r - REBOOT, rather than shutdown

/t 0 - Set the timer to 0 seconds, i.e. perform the command right away

Example:

reboot /f /r /t 0

I hope this helps prevent some head-scratching!

Windows Vista hides the administrator user. In order to access it, open a command prompt and issue the command:

net user administrator /active:yes password

Password can be anything you want, and will set up the administrator user.

Although you can access much of your system’s setting under the default super user account, Vista implements a User Access Control System that effectively makes administrator the only real super user. In particular, the “Local Users and Groups” interface is normally hidden from you.

One more note - the command listed above can’t be run from a regular shell - you must open the shell as administrator.