QWINSTA and RWINSTA

If you need to RDP a remote Windows server and all the sessions seem to be unavailable, you may use two utilities to kill offending/exceeding sessions: qwinsta and rwinsta

Here’s the procedure:

• Type “Psexec \\servername –u username –p password –c cmd”
• Type “qwinsta”
• Choose a session to kill and note its id
• Type “rwinsta id”

... because the real sysadm can do it via the command line!

Additional notes:

QWINSTA.EXE: queries the sessions

qwinsta /?

Display information about Terminal Sessions.

QUERY SESSION [sessionname | username | sessionid]
[/SERVER:servername] [/MODE] [/FLOW] [/CONNECT] [/COUNTER]

sessionname Identifies the session named sessionname.
username Identifies the session with user username.
sessionid Identifies the session with ID sessionid.
/SERVER:servername The server to be queried (default is current).
/MODE Display current line settings.
/FLOW Display current flow control settings.
/CONNECT Display current connect settings.
/COUNTER Display current Terminal Services counters information.

RWINSTA.EXE: removes the sessions

rwinsta /?

C:\Documents and Settings\stever>rwinsta /?
Reset the session subsytem hardware and software to known initial values.

RESET SESSION {sessionname | sessionid} [/SERVER:servername] [/V]

sessionname Identifies the session with name sessionname.
sessionid Identifies the session with ID sessionid.
/SERVER:servername The server containing the session (default is current).
/V Display additional information.