How Many Concurrent Connections Allowed to Access A Windows 7 Computer?

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Prior to Windows 7, any Windows desktop version of operating system limited you only to allow up to 10 concurrent connections maximum, or only 5 in Vista Home Basic edition. Has this changed in Windows 7? Sure it does. With Windows 7, all editions support 20 concurrent connections for services such as File Services, Print Services, IIS, Internet Connection Sharing, and Telephony.

Want confirm? Just open About Windows by running winver command, and click to open Microsoft Software License Terms. Under 3. Additional Licensing Requirements And/Or Use Rights, it states clearly that:

image thumb - How Many Concurrent Connections Allowed to Access A Windows 7 Computer?

Note that it doesn’t include Remote Access Technologies like Remote Desktop, which basically only allows the single primary user of the licensed computer to access a session of the computer. And that essentially tells us that the trick we revealed to enable multiple concurrent users in remote desktop in Windows 7 wasn’t legally licensed, despite that it’s really a good useful hack.

With this increased number, you can actually run a Windows 7 computer as a file sharing server, intranet, or printer server, if your organization is at the size under 20.

Credit goes to John Savill’s FAQs newsletter. He also points out that Microsoft has a website that stores all its EULAs for those people who just accepts the EULA without bothering reading them.

2 COMMENTS

  1. One inaccuracy – enabling other users to access a Windows 7 computer via RDP is totally legal – as long as every user has an additional license for that connection. As clearly stated in the EULA displayed above. That’s all it takes – and it is still cheaper than buying RDS licenses …

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