Dear Microsoft.
You have done a lot of things right in both Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1 (and Server 2008) and in Windows XP Service Pack 3. But for some reason, and I really can't understand why, you have done rather arbitrary command line parameter changes in the new Terminal Services client.
As most, of not all, Windows Server administrators I rely heavily on the remote administration capabilities of the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).While Windows allows a lot of remote administration methods, some things do need more of a "hands on approach". Remotely connecting to the server console provides an excellent way to get your hands dirty, and as I live in a mostly virtualized environment it's usually the best way of managing some aspects of my servers.
In a pre Vista SP1/Server 2008 and XP SP3 environment, a simple '%windir%\System32\mstsc.exe -v:<ip> /F /console' would do the trick.
All of a sudden, notice that that the /console argument seems to have been replaced by a new /admin argument. What?! All my old shortcuts that connect me directly to the servers console no longer connect me to the console. It doesn't complain when I execute the command, but if I don't use the new /admin parameter I connect to a new session instead of an existing console session.
It's a small task to change my own personal shortcuts, but if you have created a set of shared shortcuts for your administrators you now need double sets. At least until you upgrade all you clients. For a set of administrators thats a small task, but it's greatly annoying. Another side effect of this is that if you have old MMC consoles still call the /console option as well, thus are not connecting to the actual console. I noticed that the Remote Admin MMC plugin in Windows Server 2008 has been updated to actually use the new /admin parameter, so at least they got that bit sorted. I haven't checked in XP or Vista yet though.
Microsoft: I can't understand why you did this change, but I can accept it. What I don't understand is this; When you change a parameter like this, didn't you think that it would be a good idea to still support the old syntax as well? At least until the next version?
I wonder how many others are out there that think they connect to their server consoles, but actually aren't. I'm certain this has caused a lot of frustration and confusion all over the place. In mixed environments this can be a real hassle, and a genuine issue. I'm sure there are are other consequences to this as well, that I haven't discovered or thought about yet.
In summary, /console has been deprecated and replaced by /admin when calling the mstsc client. Why? I have no idea, and I haven't seen anything "official" regarding this anywhere.