Terminal Services and Barcodes
Given the fact that I do system administration work for a hosted solutions provider, I thought it would be nice for a change of pace to post a computer related article. I seem to be tied up in all sorts of mechanical projects at the house, time for a change. So let’s kick this off with some things I figured out at my job, without giving away confidential data. One customer today was using hand held bar code scanners made by Symbol. Specifically they had 2 models, LS1902 and LS2208. They had no problem scanning barcodes and getting them to display in notepad on the local machines. The trouble came about from trying to get a proper read into their hosted terminal services system that we maintain. Their barcodes had the “&” symbol in them but it would just put the number 7 in their place. Further troubleshooting revealed that sometimes it would also shift the case of the letters in the barcode. We then realized that if the Terminal Services window was not in fullscreen mode that it would work properly. After some research and experimenting we found a work around for the issue. It had been working previously but broke several days ago coincidentally. The solution was as follows. Go to your options within the connection you are using on the local machine (options button on new connection, or right click and edit an existing connection icon). From there go to the local resources tab, then look at the keyboard section. There should be a field there about “Windows Key Combinations”, change the setting to “On the local computer”. It’s now time to test your barcodes. See Picture….
Local resource tab for Terminal services connection
This is using RDP Client V6 on Windows 2K3 terminal services, which is also the same combination we were troubleshooting. The down fall to this fix is that you will not be able to use Window’s shortcut keys within the Terminal Services connection. (Ex. Alt-Tab, Win-E, Win-D, Win-L, etc.) These combination will only work on the local terminal. The default behaviour is for it to act locally unless in full screen mode on the connection. Changing this setting now forces all those combination keys plus more to act locally at all times. Use cautiously.
Microsoft Windows Server(TM) 2003 Terminal Services (Pro-One-Offs)
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