Thanks, Wade, for a fantastic and useful post which sparked an even more useful thread. Also, thanks to Mike, Anon, and Alex S. for their contributions to this guide, as well as everyone else for posting their experiences and issues, which made this guide possible.

Here goes:

1. Navigate the Windows registry to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet00X/Control/ProductOptions (where ControlSet00X is the one with the highest number) and delete the “ProductSuite” key.

2. Create a new DWORD key in this same folder called “Brand” and set it’s value to 0.

3. Reboot Windows. At startup mash F8 to bring up the boot options and choose “Last Known Good Configuration”.

4. Download and extract “devcon.exe” and follow these steps:
(Devcon.exe can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272)

It is a self extracting zip file.
Run it by double clicking it.
When you run it, you will be prompted for a location to unzip it.
Type “c:\devcon” in the textbox and uzip it by clicking the “Unzip” button.
When it is done, close the self extractor screen by clicking the “Close” button.

5. Open a command prompt by going to the start menu and selecting “start->run” and typing “cmd” in the textbox and clicking “Ok”. You should see a command prompt. Leave it open.

6. Go to my computer, double click the “C:” drive, then double click the “devcon” folder, then double click the “i386″ folder. You should now see a file called “devcon.exe”. This file is different from the first devcon.exe. This one is NOT a zip file.

7. With your right mouse button, drag this “devcon.exe” from the folder to the command prompt window that you left open before, and drop it. You should now see something in your command window like “c:\devcon\i386\devcon.exe”, with quotes around it.

8. At the end of that line in the command prompt window, after the last quote, type a space, then type “-r install %windir%\inf\machine.inf root\rdpdr” (without the quotes).

The command line should now look like this:
“c:\devcon\i386\devcon.exe” -r install %windir%\inf\machine.inf root\rdpdr

9. With the cursor at the end of that line, hit the “enter” key.
Patiently wait until it finishes and the command prompt returns.

10. Reboot normally.

11. Download the batch file located here: http://geekport.com/files/enableterm.bat

12. Double click the file to run it.
Patiently wait until it finishes and the command prompt returns.

Note: In case that batch file link does not work for some reason, here are its contents:

@echo off
echo Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00> c:\TS2.reg
echo [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TermService]>> c:\TS2.reg
echo “Start”=dword:00000002>> c:\TS2.reg
echo [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server]>> c:\TS2.reg
echo “AllowTSConnections”=dword:00000001>> c:\TS2.reg
echo [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server]>> c:\TS2.reg
echo “fDenyTSConnections”=dword:00000000>> c:\TS2.reg
echo [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server]>> c:\TS2.reg
echo “fAllowToGetHelp”=dword:00000001>> c:\TS2.reg
echo [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]>> c:\TS2.reg
echo “AllowMultipleTSSessions”=dword:00000001>> c:\TS2.reg
echo [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]>> c:\TS2.reg
echo “AutoAdminLogon”=”1″>> c:\TS2.reg
%windir%\regedit.exe /S c:\TS2.reg
echo [Components] > c:\bootlog~.txt
echo TSEnabled = on >> c:\bootlog~.txt
sysocmgr /i:%windir%\inf\sysoc.inf /u:c:\bootlog~.txt /q
DEL /Q c:\TS2.REG
DEL /Q c:\bootlog~.txt
exit

If you paste that into a notepad file and save it as “enableterm.bat” you will have the file you need.

13. Reboot normally.
14. Reboot again before you decide if you need to continue with the steps below, since the “AutoAdminLogon” setting applied in the batch file sometimes automatically resets itself after another reboot.

If you are no longer being asked for a password when you login, follow these steps:
NOTE: To use remote desktop, passwords must be enabled.
NOTE: Be sure you have an administrative account and you know the username and password to it before you proceed.

1. Click on Start on the windows task bar.
2. Click run.
3. Type “control userpasswords2″ without quotes and click enter.
4. Check the box that says “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer”.
5. Click “Ok”.
6. Reboot normally.

You are done. You should now be able use remote desktop to connnect to the computer you did this stuff on.
Regards,
Jesse

I checked netstat -a and it has port 3389 as listening…

BTW2: I managed to get the cmd to install the devcon.exe on the path provided by mike… but its still not working :<

followed steps 1-3 from the guide, then followed mike’s steps of extracting the file, which created the file “i386″ inside is the same file (Devcon.exe) but it just opens then closes in a spilt second…

I then ran cmd, navigated through the file and then typed what was said but it came up with the following message

“Device mode created. Install is complete when drives are updated…
updating drivers for root/rdpdr from C:\windows\inf\machine.inf.
devcon.exe failed.”

Any help?

BTW mike, which .bat file do you say you run again? the “enableterm.bat” from the guide?

Thanks for your help people