better remote desktop

I'm setting up a torrent/movie system running sever 2k3. It's going to behind our entertainment system running torrents and hooked up to the TV to play movies when ever we want.
Back there it will have no monitor(unless you count the TV), no keyboard, and no mouse.
So basicly no direct control unless I completely take the box out and move it to my desk.
So, to do something like playing a movie I was going to do that using remote desktop, but I can't access an active session on the system.
In XP, remote desktop logged the user off at the desk, but allowed the remote user to completely interact with the user, and then when he was done you could go in and there would still be the programs that s/he left open, open.
The problem with this is that you are kicked off at the desk from it, and without a mouse or keyboard, unable to log back in.

Then Server 2k3, when you connect remotely instead of taking over a whole user, you simply log in as that user but under a new session. So you can basicly have the administrator logged in twice, the desktop of each of those being seperate.
Like in XP, in the end you can not view the session that you wish to from the TV.

So, unless anyone knows a trick to get server2k3 working the way I want, I think I'm going to need a third party program that allows remote access of sessions that does not boot the session at the desktop.

What programs do you suggest for this?



In before linux, opera, ect.

Seriously, use Linux.

sounds like a lot of work for something that could be accomplished with either a mini pc, Media Center and a wifi connection to a central server. that or an xbox 360?

I'm trying to do it in a way that doesn't cost me any money and doesn't take me a month to learn a new OS.

Damn, how is it that MS can take something simple and elegant like VNC, make it suck balls, and then sell it for $99 to suckers that don't know any better?

Sega to counter megalithic clusterfuck

use VNC

>>5

It's not a technical limitation in RDP, which is actually rather good and is certainly superior to VNC protocol in that it transmits screen changes at a higher level than just pixels, reducing the bandwidth required.

For example, XP/Vista's Remote Assistance allows one to control a session simultaneously on the console and across the network. It's just annoying that they didn't include this feature in the normal remote desktop client/server.

>>5
>>6
thank you, that looks like what I need.