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Temp Environmental Variables In Server 2008/2008R2


Noise

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Does anyone know what's going on here:

In Windows Server 2008 and 2008R2 The TEMP and TMP directory settings are set in the System Properties (like previous versions). However, when I open a command prompt or open explorer in the %TEMP% directory the setting is appended with a subdirectory. The subdirectory is a number and seems to correlate to the session you are currently working under. For example, if I have the user TEMP variable set to C:\TEMP in system properties and I open a command prompt window and type, "ECHO %TEMP%" the result will be C:\TEMP\1\ (see screenshot).

tempdirchange.png

Why is Windows doing this, and how do I turn it off?

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When you do an Echo from the command line, it is returning to you the User Temp Variable (see top of your screen shot) while the system temp variable it C:\Windows\temp, the User Temp is %USERPROFILE%\appdata\local\temp.

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This concept was originally was created by Citrix when they produced WinFrame as a way of handling multiple user sessions on the same machine as a way to handle keeping each user's temp location unique to each user. Microsoft added it to their OS subsequently as they added Windows Terminal Services to the OS, and this only happened when logging into a terminal services session.

With the evolution of the OS in the Vista timeframe, Micrsooft added the ability for you to have multiple users logged into the OS console at the same time and switch between user sessions, to do that they used the same concept borrowed from the Windows Terminal Services side of the OS.

It is just a mechanism to keep the temp variable locations unique and separate between users. The number used for the directory is actually the session ID number for the user session.

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It doesn't make sense though. In Windows (with the exception of terminal server) you can't have multiple sessions of the same user account active at the same time. And separate accounts all have separate temp directory locations. Am I wrong here?

I'm only asking this because I was running in to a huge problem installing ESET Remote Administrator on a newly installed pristine Windows Server 2008 box. The installation program was using the user settings from the registry and the modified one with the appended directory. This caused it to bomb out big time. I finally fixed the problem by setting the user tmp/temp variables to point to the appended temp directory.

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It doesn't make sense though. In Windows (with the exception of terminal server) you can't have multiple sessions of the same user account active at the same time. And separate accounts all have separate temp directory locations. Am I wrong here?

I'm only asking this because I was running in to a huge problem installing ESET Remote Administrator on a newly installed pristine Windows Server 2008 box. The installation program was using the user settings from the registry and the modified one with the appended directory. This caused it to bomb out big time. I finally fixed the problem by setting the user tmp/temp variables to point to the appended temp directory.

Hmm, don't server products allow 3 administrative logins even with Terminal Server disabled. One to the console (the zero session), and two additional sessions. That used to be my favorite feature of W2K3, even had termsrv.dll hack to make Vista act the same way.

I think if you use the Remote Desktops.msc (not the normal Remote Desktop - big difference) it can specify which session you want to connect with. For W7/2008/R2 I think the new version is in the RSAT

It's worth a shot, try logging into the zero session and report back if that resolves the issue.

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Yes, 2 sessions - however, there's no logging into session 0 on 2008 or 2008 R2 anymore, so you only get two. Even local logins aren't session 0 anymore, for what it's worth, that usually catches admins by surprise when they move from 2003 to 2008 / R2.

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