How to add a second Remote Desktop user on Windows Server 2022

Windows Server lets two people work over Remote Desktop at the same time, with no extra licences. A fresh server only has the Administrator account, so the second seat sits unused until you add someone. This guide creates a second user with PowerShell and gives them Remote Desktop access. It also covers what happens when a third person tries to connect.

We tested it on our Windows Server 2022 image, with two RDP sessions open at once and then a third login attempt. Run everything in PowerShell as Administrator over RDP (how to connect). The example user is called bob.

1. Create the user

$pw = Read-Host -AsSecureString "Password for bob"
New-LocalUser -Name "bob" -Password $pw -FullName "Bob" -PasswordNeverExpires

Read-Host -AsSecureString keeps the password out of your command history. Two things about it:

• Complexity is enforced. A short password like qwerty12 is rejected with "The value provided for the new password does not meet the length, complexity, or history requirements". Use a long password with mixed case, digits and a symbol.
• Passwords expire after 42 days by default. net accounts on our image shows Maximum password age (days): 42, and a test user created without -PasswordNeverExpires got an expiry date 42 days out. If you leave expiry on, put a reminder in your calendar.

2. Give the user Remote Desktop access

Add-LocalGroupMember -Group "Remote Desktop Users" -Member "bob"
Get-LocalGroupMember -Group "Remote Desktop Users"

On a fresh server this group is empty, and only administrators can log in over RDP. Membership is all a normal user needs. If bob should also be able to install software and change settings, add him to Administrators instead. Administrators can always use RDP.

3. Log in as the new user

Bob uses the same address and port as you. On a NAT plan, that's the personal port shown in your dashboard, which leads to RDP on the server. In Remote Desktop Connection, click Show Options and enter bob as the user name. If your own computer belongs to a company domain, type .\bob so Windows looks for the account on the server rather than in your domain.

The first login takes a little longer while Windows creates bob's profile in C:\Users\bob.

Servers installed from our image since 24 October 2026 lock any account for 15 minutes after five wrong passwords, and that includes new users. If bob mistypes his password a few times, he waits a quarter of an hour. The RDP security guide explains the lock and how to set it on older servers.

4. Two sessions, and what a third person sees

With Administrator and bob both connected, quser on our test server showed two active sessions:

 USERNAME              SESSIONNAME        ID  STATE   IDLE TIME  LOGON TIME
 administrator         rdp-tcp#0           2  Active          1  10/24/2026 9:34 PM
 bob                   rdp-tcp#1           3  Active          .  10/24/2026 9:35 PM

Then a third user, carol, connected. Windows didn't open a third session. It asked carol to pick one of the two users to disconnect. When she didn't choose, her own connection ended and the other two sessions carried on untouched. If she had picked one, that person would have been disconnected, and their programs would keep running until they reconnected.

So two is a hard limit on a standard Windows Server. Running more people at once needs the Remote Desktop Services role and RDS client access licences, which are bought separately from the server licence.

5. See who's connected and sign someone out

quser
logoff 3

quser lists every session with its ID. Active means someone is connected right now. Disc means they closed the window without signing out, and their programs are still running. logoff followed by an ID ends that session, and anything unsaved in it is lost. On our server bob's session disappeared from quser right after logoff 3.

6. Remove the user

Remove-LocalUser -Name "bob"

This deletes the account but not the profile folder C:\Users\bob. Remove that under System Properties → Advanced → User Profiles if you don't need the files.

Which plan

Windows itself takes about 1 to 1.3 GB of RAM before anyone logs in, and each person adds their own programs on top. Windows-Small (4 vCPU, 4 GB, 50 GB, $11/mo) is fine for one person plus an occasional second login. If two people will work at the same time with browsers open, Windows-Medium with 6 vCPU and 6 GB for $19/mo has more room. Both are NAT plans, and both users connect through the same personal port. With its own IPv4, Windows Small-IP is $28/mo.

The image is Windows Server 2022 with your own licence (how BYOL works). All four plans are on the Windows VPS page.