No more MSTSC.exe /CONSOLE

Windows XP Service Pack 3 - No more MSTSC.exe /CONSOLE

Thats’ right. No more /console switch on the Windows Remote Desktop Connection tool, MSTSC.exe, starting from Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008.

This is because of the design enhancements in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, by virtue of which you cannot connect to Session 0, which is the default session. Running services and user applications together in Session 0 poses a security risk because services in Session 0 run at elevated privileges and therefore can be targeted by malware that attack by attempting and exploiting a privilege escalation.


Notice that the /console option is not available, but there is a /admin option. The /admin option lets you connect to Session 0 on a remote computer that doesn’t have Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3 or Windows Server 2008 or later installed.

Workaround
You use the /admin switch to connect to an existing session on a remote machine.
In short, you can do everything you did with /console except connecting to session 0.

roll back the files
... replace the XPsp3 MSTSC.EXE with MSTSC.EXE Version 5.1 from an XPsp2 machine and both applications now work with the /console switch. There was no need to uninstall XPsp3. I ALSO replaced the MSTSCAX.DLL, MSTSHST.DLL, and MSTSMMC.DLL with the XPsp2 copies. These are all located in SYSTEM32. SteveK