I was wondering if there is a way to stop from getting the log on screen on the host computer when connecting using remote desktop? I wanted to connect to the computer and have the person in front of it be able to see what I am doing. I want to do this without the person sending me an invite. In other words I will give you and example. Lets say my son is at the computer and I wants to see what he sees.

One way would be to install a VNC server and viewer. Ultra VNC and RealVNC are free, but it takes an intermediate technical knowhow to set them up. If you're not comfortable with that, and you have high speed internet, you could go with LogMeIn.

Sign up on LogMeIn.com for free, install the free software, and you can control the computer from their website. There is an options section to control what appears on the screen while you're remotely connected, but it defaults to showing everything on both the screen and your remote connection.

The reason is it use to work fine until my laptop crashed and now after loading win xp and trying to connect to my basement computer it closed the session. Before I could connect and the display would remain on while the mirror image was on my laptop. I don't know why now the monitor shows ctl alt delete for me to sign in;.

Remote desktop doesn't let two people look at the same screen at the same time. If you sign in from remote desktop, the screen will always be locked on the computer you connect to.

Were you maybe using remote assistanc ebefore instead?

Now you got me. I know that I didn't have to send out a request I just opened it up and connected I could see both. I thought it was remote desktop.