winscape 2377

Greg Menke

I am pretty sure that there are certain configurations where that is possible. XP is released on several different packages and some features are only exposed in some of them and in conjunction with some 3rd-party add-on software even though the core features are actually present in the kernel even in the other packages. Here is what I do know:

1) The desktop manager is re-entrant and several instances can run at the same time on the same server box, projecting different desktops to different remote users. The server side of this is known as "Windows Terminal Server" and is available only as an add-on to "Windows Server" system editions. Microsoft started work on this a long time ago, but fouled it up. Citrix licensed the code from Microsoft and made it work very well. Microsoft then bought back some of it. I believe this functionality is now available from Microsoft, but "everyone knows" that if you want it to work, you should buy it from Citrix. The client side of this is in every XP kit, including "XP Home Edition".

2) Every XP allows you to log in with one user ID, then switch to another usr account and start a new desktop. You can switch back and forth between these. Within a desktop, you can also run any program as another user. It then runs in the current desktop but with the user rights of another user.

3) The remote desktop client can also attach to the active, displayed desktop on another XP system. This is used for remote access as well as for online help. To make it useful for remote access, it has to work without interaction on the computer where the desktop lives; to make it secure for online help, it needs to require the acceptance of the person sitting at the mechine when the remote takes control. The Home edition can only serve the desktop in online help mode; the Pro edition can serve remote access.

I don't claim to be an expert on Windows sysadmin, but I am sure someone will correct me if any of the above is off-base.

Lars Poulsen