This trick I learned from my one of ex-college. In Windows servers, only two remote desktop sessions allowed with administrative access. There are situations, you can’t connect to the server via remote desktop because of two sessions already active. You may have seen this dialog box. ("Remote Desktop Disconnected", "This computer can’t connect to the remote computer")
Usually Windows Administrators, open "Terminal Services Manager" (in Administrative tools), connect to the problematic server and log off the unwanted sessions. There are easy ways if you love command line based tools.
Query the Remote Server for Current Terminal Sessions
To query and list the sessions on the remote session, you could use QUser.exe or QWinsta
1. QUser
QUser command comes with all the latest Windows clients and servers. This will list the sessions of the remote server (or local machine).
NOTE: if you are using Windows XP, you need to add this location into your System path: C:WindowsSystem32DLLCache. To do this, in command prompt, type the following.
SET PATH = %PATH%;C:WindowsSystem32DLLCache;
QUser help shows,
C:Anand>QUser /?
Display information about users logged on to the system.QUERY USER [username | sessionname | sessionid] [/SERVER:servername]
username Identifies the username.
sessionname Identifies the session named sessionname.
sessionid Identifies the session with ID sessionid.
/SERVER:servername The server to be queried (default is current).
E.g.,
C:>quser /server:MyCitrixSVR
USERNAME SESSIONNAME ID STATE IDLE TIME LOGON TIME
johndoe ica-tcp#966 10 Active 7 7/31/2008 3:04 PM
averagejoe ica-tcp#969 1 Active 9 7/31/2008 3:30 PM
familyman ica-tcp#984 5 Active 1:06 7/31/2008 4:33 PM
normaldude ica-tcp#987 2 Active 4 7/31/2008 6:20 PM
2. QWinsta
QWinsta is little different and better. It has more features and options. It comes with all flavors of Windows. QWinsta command line help displays as,
C:>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.
E.g.,
C:>qwinsta /server:citrixserver
SESSIONNAME USERNAME ID STATE TYPE DEVICE
0 Disc rdpwd
ica-tcp 65536 Listen wdica
rdp-tcp 65537 Listen rdpwd
console 16 Conn wdcon
ica-tcp#966 johndoe 10 Active wdica
ica-tcp#969 apple 1 Active wdica
ica-tcp#984 averagejoe 5 Active wdica
ica-tcp#987 familyman 2 Active wdica
ica-tcp#989 whoisme 3 Active wdica
You are welcome to try the other options QWinsta provides.
Logoff the Remote Sessions
To Log off the terminal session of the remote server, you can use any one of two command line tools. One of LOGOFF and another one is RWINSTA. Before you log off the remote session, you should know the "Session ID" which you get it from "QUSER" OR "QWINSTA" commands as above stated.
1. Logoff
Logoff command kicks off (logging off) the specified remote session. Log off help shows,
C:>logoff /?
Terminates a session.LOGOFF [sessionname | sessionid] [/SERVER:servername] [/V]
sessionname The name of the session.
sessionid The ID of the session.
/SERVER:servername Specifies the Terminal server containing the user
session to log off (default is current).
/V Displays information about the actions performed.
E.g.,
C:>logoff /server:infra-apps 1 /v
Logging off session ID 1
2. RWinsta
RWinsta has same parameters and does same thing as log off command. It simply means Reset WINdows STAtion. The help goes as,
C:>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.
E.g.,
C:>RWinsta /Server:MyWinServer 1
Note: RWinsta command does not return anything.
Happy Re-setting the remote sessions (Hey, stop cursing your co-workers who didn’t log off their sessions).
Keywords: Reset remote session, Remote Desktop Session
Anand, the Architect 
This knowledge sharing helped me a lot in cirtical situation , thanks a ton 🙂
Good post.I guess the above commands would logoff and kill existing processes and a login will give you a fresh instance. Is there a way similar to Task manager -> Users -> Disconnect where you can disconnect / take control of an existing remote desktop session without killing the programs currently executing? Note: I’m doing this over the internet, so don’t have remote MMC access. Just have an SSH (command line) session with the target server.
PSTools has this as well:
psloggedon \\[ip or netname]
psshutdown -o for logoff console user use -f to force apps to close
I never checked PSTools for this. But it’s very good know. I always used "shutdown" command to shutdown or reboot which comes with XP and up OSes.
Very good!
I am unable to find QUser.exe or QWinsta command in windows XP, please let me know the path…
I hope you are not using XP Home edition. Open your command prompt and type this command at C:\ in command prompt: Dir Qwinsta*.* /s
This command will search the while C: dirve and tell you where QWinsta is. I am sorry I don’t have any XP computers nearby to check it for you.
windows 7 returned error
Erro 0x00000005 ao enumerar sessionnames
Erro [5]:Acesso negado.
Open your command prompt in elevated mode (run as administrator) and try it. Remember you have to be administrator for the target server.
Open a command Promt by selecting Run As different user.
Then, enter user name “remotehostname\administrator” and password.
the AllowRemoteRPC key has a value of 0 – which is why it is failing. To fix this, run this command.
START > Run > cmd >
Reg ADD “HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server” /v AllowRemoteRPC /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
Good info thanks. Only one issue in that your path up the top of the page says SET PATH = %PATH%;C:WindowsSystem32DLLCache; when it seems it should include the backslashes and actually be SET PATH = %PATH%;C:\Windows\System32\DLLCache;
Thanks David
Also, it would be good to specify that this is for SERVERS ONLY! Not for workstations – by that, I mean you cannot use this to “list sessions running on a workstation.”
This ONLY works to list sessions running on SERVERS!
You can run the tool FROM your worsktation, but you CANNOT list sessions of another workstation – it would be a nice feature, though. There are times when various tools have taken control, via ‘console session’ or other session, on workstations, and we need to know WHO owns the session; be able to kill the session, etc.
Thanks for sharing. It is useful.
Useful article.
Outstanding quest there. What happened after? Take care!
For Could not logoff session ID 6, Error code 5
Error [5]:Access is denied.
Try this… On Task Manager, Go to processes and click on “show processes from all users” . Once you have done that, go back to user’s tab and right click on the session and click on “LogOff”. That should do the trick :d
Thanks a lot
This was working for me in Server 2003, but now in Server 2008, I am getting “Access is Denied”. UAC is disabled.
Try opening command prompt as administrator.
Wonderful post! We are linking to this particularly great article on our site.
Keep up the good writing.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate your efforts and
I will be waiting for your next post thanks once again.
Great post very helpful!
Thanks for this great information to logoff terminal session. However, it is also possible via command line tool.. Please check out http://yourcomputer.in/how-to-logoff-remote-desktop-sessions-via-command-line-tools/
Thanks , wonderful topic , really helpful
Very usefull and straightforward info. Thank you!
Radek
thanks for help full full commed
Very helpful – just what i was looking for – THANK YOU
How to log off all active sessions except current one? I need to run it daily I cant mention session ID every time. is it possible ?
Realy nice. This helps me a lot.
Thanks
Good post! Thanks for the share.
Thank You very much.. It works on Windows 2003 Server.
WIndows 2003 Server (SP 2) Standard Edition. It is not working with user stuck on console session (ID 0).
C:\>rwinsta 0 /v
Resetting session ID 0
Session ID 0 has been reset
But the user remain stuck.
SESSIONNAME USERNAME ID STATE TYPE
************ 0 Disc rdpwd
We need to get rid of this session without restarting the server.
Any suggestions?
This knowledge sharing helped me a lot in critical situation , thanks a ton.
This knowledge sharing helped me a lot in a non-critical (but very annoying) situation, thanks a ton from Mexico!
Thanks – valuable tip
This helped me today. Thank you
THANK YOU!!! Qwinsta = Best. Command. Ever.
Hi Dude,
how to logoff list of users at a time in windows server, is there any command. please help me
Hi there,
A useful addition might be to first message the connected user.
msg username message
msg anand_architect Please save your work server shutdown in 5 minutes
Thanks, still as relevant as the day it was written