Installing Teamviewer over Remote Desktop


Having a TeamViewer unattended host on a server is a million times better than remote desktop in many situations. First off screen resolution by default isn’t an issue. Secondly you can also let someone else see what is going on with the physical server. Today I came across an interesting thing. We had remote access to a server through RDP so we installed TeamViewer (Version 10). With that logged in RDP account. Everything was great and the ID for this account was quickly added into our list of servers that we manage. Then we logged off of Remote Desktop. When this happened we noticed a strange thing, the remote desktop killed the TeamViewer. After a few hours of searching the Internet to no avail and trying over a dozen things we tried locking the screen with the remote desktop. When we did we got the following error with a black screen:

“The screen cannot be captured at the moment. This is probably due to fast user switching or a disconnected/minimized remote desktop session”. That is a great bit of information but gives no solution on how to fix the problem. I thought the service must not be starting with the session so I will try a remote reboot to see if we can force the service. This is when I stumbled on the answer to the problem.

The Remote Desktop Session through RDP has a different TeamViewer ID than the standard service running. When you tell the server to remote reboot it gives you the prompt that “Multi User View Mode is enabled” and that logging on again will require you to log in with the new ID XXX XXX XXX. To connect to the correct ID note it down and then cancel the remote reboot. Once that is finished you can log out of the RDP and then log in with the new TeamViewer ID. This will be your permanent ID outside of the RDP Scope.

I hope this saves someone a few hours of time.


33 responses to “Installing Teamviewer over Remote Desktop”

  1. Exactly.I did the same as you mentioned, I took the new ID which I found when I selected the reboot option, this helped me get connected without the error. This is the best solution I have found so far.

  2. Thank you so much. I called there tech support and they told me there was no way to get this to work over RDP!!

  3. OMG – Thank you so much. I have had this issue for a while and after this it is final fixed.. YOU ROCK!!!

  4. I did the same but its not working as the password getting changed. so I cannot login with the same password

  5. Do you know if this workaround still works on TV11? When I connect to a new RPD, it takes the standard ID (the other connection ID turns to a – ) and reboots normally without show the Multi User message.

  6. Spent hours trolling forums with this issue and your solution worked perfectly! Thank you! ๐Ÿ™‚

  7. Hi there, what if i need to continue my work in that rdp session?

    > Computer-A On
    >> Login by remote desktop-ing to Computer-A
    >> do some work,
    >> disconnect the remote desktop, without Log-Off (just by disconnect the Remote desktop)
    >> Teamviewer-ing to that ID
    >> “dark screen”, that’s it

    But when i do that remote Computer-A by remote desktop again, that dark screen suddenly vanish and you can see the desktop and else.

    Please give me some hint..

  8. get the primary ID from the registry:
    HKLM\Software\TeamViewer\ClientID
    Open the key and click Decimal to see the right key (don’t use the hex)

    In your TV client click add then remote computer and fill in the details. password is what you already set for unattended when you installed TV on the machine.

    This still works in TV12 beta.

  9. New in version 12: If you click on the TeamViewer icon in the system tray it will give you a small little icon next to the RDP Access Code that will tell you what the unattended access code is.

  10. I am not able to Implement the below Can you Help me please i have windows Server 12 and Team Viewer 12

  11. Thank you man, I did not do exactly the same think but it inspired me. I opened from RDP and TViewer, then I reboot from RDP, I said to reconnect when possible in TV, when it rebooted then TV connected automatically (saying that it was not possible for a few moments) and then I wrote down the ID, remove the computer and add it with the new ID, and ready! Great!

  12. Excellent work guys, saved time for me as well.

    I did the below:
    1. within the RDP session
    2. opened Team Viewer
    3. Used Help>about
    4. you can see there is two session ID’s
    5. You should use the other one which you don’t know about

    Used that one in TV to pickup the non-RDP session.

  13. GREAT!!
    It works fine !!
    I think I’m going to invest the time spared by drinking some beers to your health!
    Many thanks!!!

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