Remote Desktop in Windows 2003

I know that two people can log in concurrently via Remote Desktop as administrators on a Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition. But I am not clear on what these two remote users can and cannot do. I have used Remote Desktop to log into my WinXP Pro for a while now and basically know that I can do virtually anything remotely that I can do locally. Does the same situation apply to Windows 2003? Can I and another admin log in concurrently and share programs like Word and Excel on that Win 2003 system? Or can only one user use the app at a time while the other, althought who can navigate through directories and do some maintenance tasks, he cannot use the in-use program like Word until I have logged out or released the program?

 

Well, after reading the help file from Microsoft, I decided to get my hands dirty and actually try it out. Well, my fellow geeks, first of all, Windows Server 2003 does allows 2 concurrent log-ins via Remote Desktop. As to whether W2k3 allows sharing of applications like Word, well, the answer is yes! If both users modify different Word files, then each can use the single copy of Word to create and modify his own files. However, I want to see what happens when both these remote log-in users try to work on the same Word file. As a test, I enable 2 users in the W2k3 system: the default Administrator and a second account called Admin. Both are administrators.

There are three computers in this test. One called Server which contains W2k3. The second and third run WinXP Pro. Using the 2 XP Pro machines, I remotely log into the Server concurrently, one as Administrator and the other as Admin. Each gets its own desktop.

I open Word under Administrator. Ok.

I open Word under Admin, Ok.

I create a new document called Administrator_doc under Administrator and save it onto the desktop. Ok.

I create a new document called Admin_doc under Admin and save it onto the desktop. Ok. Notice that these 2 desktops are different.

With Administrator_doc still open and in-use by Administrator, I try to open that same file under Admin. I got an "error" message saying that the file is locked. This message is generated by Word. The message gives me 3 options.
a) Open the file as Read only
b) Create a local and merge your changes later
c) Receive notification when the original copy is available.

The first option is self-explanatory. I decide to choose the third option. To my surprise, Word actually opens the Administrator_doc file with all the text created by Administrator. I add more text under Administrator and save the file without problems. The newly added text by Administrator do not appear under Admin's view of the same file. I then under Admin create different text on this "shared" file. What is interesting is when I try to save this file under Admin, a Save As dialog windows comes up. I do a Save As and save the file under a different name. Under Administrator, when I close the file, a popup comes on under Admin asking me that the Administrator_doc file is available for editing. Well, what happens next is pretty much self-explanatory. So that is what happens when I choose option C.

I repeat the procedure by openning the Administrator_doc file under Administrator. When I try to open the same file under Admin, I get the same error message and is given 3 options as shown above. This time I choose option B. Another dialoge windows open telling that the file is still locked and that to click OK to copy the file to another location and when the original file is released by Administrator, I can use the Compare and Merge Document in Word under Tools to merge changes to the original. (This new file is temporarily as I will find out soon when the file is released by Administrator and the merging is finished). When I release the file under Administrator, a dialog comes up under Admin that the file is now available to be merged as expected. I click Merge and the resulting file has 2 texts in 2 colors: red texts were created by Admin and blue texts were created by Administrator. When I continue to type on under Admin, the new texts are in black. When I save this temp file, the name is reverted to Administrator_doc as opposed to Administrator_doc Merge. So basically, the Administrator_doc file now contains both text entries from Administrator and Admin.

So this test is educational and fun. So far, I use a word processor as a test. Next, I will try to see what happens when I use a graphic editor like Photoshop in the same context. Basically I want to find out if W2k3 allows sharing of a single copy of Photoshop and what happens when these 2 remote users try to modify the same picture file. I am sure Photoshop cannot do Merge like Word because they are 2 very different programs. Well, stay tune.