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Can you help me with my software licensing question?

Got a brand new DELL server with activated Windows 2008 OEM Standard Server. I noticed that i can have several remote desktops open at same time. Need i aquire additional terminal server license to be legal or as it works, all is legal ?

Update: In this moment i have 4 remote desktops open with 4 different users, all in group "Users", and 1 remote as admin. No remote desktop get closed.

The TS license manager shows 1 CAL Dev 2008, expires 2009-08-31.

Is this maybe a grace period ?

PD I have absolutly no problems to aquire licenses, but i don't want to pay twice ;-)

Update At this moment i need 2 users and sometimes a third (myself as admin). Seems i can live with Remote Desktop only. Will test this.

Thank you all !

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In this case it would seem like you actually have Terminal Services installed and setup, and thus you are not using the administrative Remote Desktop service. In this case, you will most certainly need Terminal Services CALs to continue to be legal in this usage. If you are simply wanting to remotely administer the server, then remove Terminal Services and turn on Remote Desktop on the server (right click My Computer, Remote tab). – Moo Jun 11 '09 at 12:54
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closed as exact duplicate by Scott Pack, sysadmin1138♦ Feb 11 at 3:01

This question covers exactly the same ground as earlier questions on this topic; its answers may be merged with another identical question. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Under normal conditions, Windows Server will allow two remote Administrator logins, and one Console Administrator login - you do not need terminal server licensing for this, they are administrative connections only.

Standard users cannot connect in this state.

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Answer is correct and spot on! – pauska Jun 11 '09 at 11:07
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as a side note your grace period is 120 Days, not that you still should not look to fix things, but knowing the day when things will "stop" is good as well. – Matt Jun 11 '09 at 15:56
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up vote 0 down vote

In addition to Moo's correct answer, that you can use two concurrent connections for administrative purposes without extra license:

Using the /admin (for older versions of the RD client: /console) switch for one connection, you can even have three open connections at the same time.

 mstsc /admin /v:servername
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Will this block the console access (or lock it)? – pauska Jun 11 '09 at 11:23
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Yep, as soon as somebody else uses the direct "physical" access or the remote access with the /admin switch, it will close your session. – splattne♦ Jun 11 '09 at 11:44
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