I’ve been playing with Windows 7 for the last couple of days and came across that problem: When I tried to connect to my work PC, using Remote Desktop, through my usual SSH tunnel, Windows 7′s Remote Desktop software did not establish the connection and, instead, complained that there was already a session opened.

Google helped me solved the problem but, since the solution did not percolate up to the first page, let me repeat it here so it gets some more Google Juice.

It happens that Windows 7′s Remote Desktop client is too smart for it’s own good and will not even try to connect to the local machine (localhost or 127.0.0.1) even if you setup a proper SSH tunnel on the regular TCP port 3389. Port 3390 doesn’t work either. But… here comes the solution: Port 3391 works! So, instead of setting up a SSH tunnel between localhost:3389->remotehost:3389, you need to setup the SSH tunnnel between localhost:3391->remotehost:3389. Then, when you start the Remote Desktop client, type localhost:3391 in the host text box and everything should work fine!

Thanks to Dr Nathan for the solution, described in this article: Follow up: Securing Windows Remote Desktop with CopSSH

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Informatique by Alexandre Lemieux