You will need to have console or iLO/DRAC access to the server with the stalled terminal services instance.
This can be accomplished by either having physical access to the server console(KVM), by using a Lights-Out remote access card to remotely access the physical console or by using a non-TS based remote console access service such as LogMeIn, VNC, etc.
Microsoft (damn you, Ballmer!) decided to disable the ability to restart terminal services by default in Windows Server. Because, you know, ... the service never fails ... LAME!
Lucky you, you are about to find out a way around that little bit of design madness.
Abrakadabra! and poof ... SysInternals - Process Explorer.
** FYI - On Windows Server 2008 you will need to start procexp.exe with Administrator rights in order to kill processes**
- Access the server console via one of the means mentioned above under pre-reqs
- Open IE and go to http://live.sysinternals.com (allows you to run sysinternals apps from the net!)
- Locate the link to procexp.exe click it and open (not save) it.
- Once Process Explorer has launched, click View in the command bar and from it's drop down menu, click on Select Columns and check Command Line, click OK.
- Next sort by Process so that you get an alphabetical listing by process name and look for: svchost.exe.
- Now expand the Command Line column, look for a svchost line that looks something like this: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\svchost.exe -k termsvcs
- Stop that svchost.exe process by right clicking it and clicking Kill Process.
- Press Windows Key+R to launch the run command, type services.msc in the Run field and press Enter
- Once the Services management console launches, locate Terminal Services and right click it, then choose Start.
Yay! Terminal Services is working now.
Huzzah! And there was much rejoicing amongst all the remote workers and administrators and no local user's open files were harmed in the process by a nasty server reboot.
Who's their Daddy? Why, you are, of course. ;-)
