Set Up Multiple Users on a VM
1. Adding a domain user to the domain controller
2. Adding a domain user to CloudShare
Configuring domain users is optional however necessary if you intend to want to set up different users on one virtual machine. Before adding the user to the domain in the CloudShare user interface, the user must first be created in the virtual machine itself.
With a Windows Server machine, you can have multiple users log in at the same time via RDP to one machine. Please note that as standard, Windows Server has only two TSclient licenses to allow this. If you require more than two users to be able to access one machine at the same time, more TSclient licenses can be obtained from Microsoft.
When viewing a machine in Console mode, multiple users can share the screen and mouse/keyboard control at the same time.
1. Adding a domain user to the domain controller
On the Active Directory machine:
1.1 Create new user
1.2 Name new user
1.3 Provide password attributes
1.4 Click Finish
On the Domain User machine:
1.5 Go to control panel > User Accounts > Manage User Accounts
1.6 On the users tab, click Add…
1.7 Set user name and domain
1.8 Set permission level
1.9 Then navigate to user properties’ Advanced tab and click ‘Advanced’ under Advanced user management
1.10 Add the user to Remote Desktop Users
2. Adding a domain user to CloudShare
Now we need to add that domain user in the CloudShare portal:
2.1 Make sure the user was already configured in the domain controller
2.2 Go to ‘Edit environments > Edit user & access’
2.3 Click ‘Manage users’
2.4 Click ‘manage users of this machine’s domain’
2.5 Click ‘Add user’ and add it’s properties
*Note 1: user needs to be added like this: “username” and not like this: “username@ad2008r2.loc”
*Note 2: watch the notification – In order to be able to connect with the user via RDP the user needs to be in the “remote desktop group” in the current VM properties (it is not enough to have the user in the AD remote desktop group).
2.6 Configure the VM to use the above user (step 2.5) in auto-login
2.6.1 Go to ‘Edit environments > Edit user & access
2.6.2 Click on the relevant VM ‘auto login with user ”XXXXX’ link
2.7 Select the newly created user
2.8 Save changes
2.9 View the machine
2.10 Take a Snapshot of the environment
Comments
8 comments
This method will work with console login but I'm not finding it working for RDP login. When I do a console login with user dsmith on domain spdom the login populates correctly with spdom\dsmith. However when I try to auto login with RDP it uses the computer name and populates with w7-computer-1\dsmith. This results in an error. I have to manually change it to spdom\dsmith each time with RDP. I'm trying to figure out how you can choose the domain user account to login with on item 2.7 and not the local account.
I've just figured out how to join the computer to domain through CloudShare. When I do I get to pick the domain account rather than the local user and everything works.
You beat me to it Peter, thanks for checking.
Scott and Peter, So how do you join the computer to the domain through CloudShare? I'm having exactly the same problem Peter described. I used Edit Environment to add a different user and configured Auto Login to use my different user name. But auto Login RDP still displays "The user name or password is incorrect" and I have to press OK which shows that RDP is trying to specify domain C3908641650. Following the above thread, I did remove the machine from the domain through CloudShare, then re-add the machine to the domain, but saw no change in behavior.
I added my machine to the domain through CloudShare by going to Edit Environments->Edit Domains and then selecting the pencil next to the machine numbers. This will give you the option to add you computer. When you go back to select your user you'll be able to select the domain account (spdom\dsmith not dsmith (local user)) which will then let you use RDP. When you try to auto-login with RDP and it fails are you able to switch users and then login with the domain account? If the domain login in the VM is not working we'll need to fix that first.
Yes, when I try to auto-login with RDP and it fails, I am able to switch users and login successfully with the AD2008R2\setupSP. domain account. So the account I want to use (AD2008R2\setupSP) is fine in the domain and is a member of the Remote Desktop Users group on the machine I'm logging in to.
Initially, I have 3 machines in my domain. The first of the 3 machines is the one I want to RDP to using the account AD2008R2\setupSP. I followed the instructions above to add this domain user to Cloudshare. I still have the problem Peter describes. Edit Environment --> Edit Users & Access. In the box for the first machine that says "Initial connection: RDP" and below that, "Auto-login with user: setupSP (local user)" if I click the pencil icon, it displays a list of users under "Choose user:" but none of the options include AD2008R2\setupSP.
I tried to remove the first machine from the domain and re-add it so that I could pick the domain account as follows. From View Environment I click Edit Environment --> Edit domains. From the Edit Domains page, in the box for the ad2008r2 domain, it displays "Machines: 3". I click the pencil icon next to the "3" . It displays a list of the 3 machines in the domain with a "Remove" action button to the right of each machine. I click "Remove" next to the first machine. The first machine disappears from teh list. I click Confirm Changes at the bottom of the page. A confirmation page prompts "Remove machine <bla> from domain ad2008r2?" I click Save Changes. This displays he My Environments page again. Here I click Edit Environment --> Edit Domains again. The Edit Domains page is displayed showing my one domain and in the box it shows "Machines: 2" as expected. I click the pencil next to the "Machines: 2" and the Machines list is displayed. From this machines lis, I click "Add a machine". My only option is the one machine I removed previously. I click "add". Now all 3 machines are part of the domain again. I click Confirm Changes. The Edit Domains page displays a prompt to confirm changes. I click "Save Changes". This redisplays the Machine List again. Edit Environment --> Edit users & access still shows the first machine with "AUto login with user: setupSP (local user)" so nothing has changed by removing from domain and re-adding.
At this point it seems as though your machine is configured the same as mine. You should be seeing the domain account login from the Edit Users & Access options. I'm new to CloudShare so Scott will have to help you out. Maybe you can share you're enviroment and he can see what you need.
We are now able to connect with 2 users using domain account. Thanks Scott!
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