What is the easiest way to enable remote desktop connections on Windows 7, with powershell?

depends. do you want to enable them remotely or is this a script that will be run locally on each system?

It will run locally on each machine. It will be part of a larger script that will be run on all newly deployed systems.

Use Shay Levy's "Remote Registry PowerShell Module", and modify the value of the "fDenyTSConnection" value in the key "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server" on the remote box to "0"

The Windows 7 box will need to be rebooted before it will take effect.

See http://oreilly.com/windows/archive/server-hacks-remote-desktop.html

Or, grab Michal Gajda's script "Enable-RDP.ps1" in the gallery :)

Karl

Sorry Karl, but I am kind of a PowerShell newb. Both of those solutions are for remotely changing the setting, and I don't know how to use them locally

in powershell:

PS C:\> dir 'HKLM:SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server'
    Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server
SKC  VC Name                           Property
---  -- ----                           --------
  3   0 AddIns                         {}
  0   1 AuthorizedApplications         {(default)}
  0  27 DefaultUserConfiguration       {Callback, CallbackNumber, Domain, InitialProgram...}
  0   8 Dos                            {KbdIdleBusymsAllowed, KbdIdleDetectAbsolute, KbdIdleDetectProbationCount, Kb...
  0   1 InputDevices                   {(default)}
  2   0 KeyboardType Mapping           {}
  0   0 Licensing Core                 {}
  0  21 SysProcs                       {csrss.exe, smss.exe, screg.exe, lsass.exe...}
  3   0 Utilities                      {}
  2   0 VIDEO                          {}
  1   0 Wds                            {}
  2   2 WinStations                    {DefaultSecurity, ConsoleSecurity}
PS C:\>

No "fDenyTSConnection" value, but I'm using XP here.

Al;

I'm curious - open your registry editor and look - I have the value in Win8, and yet I also do not see the value in PowerShell.

Karl

I managed to get it by changing that registry key. It wasn't listed in PowerShell, but I still managed to change it from there

FWIW, the reason it doesn't show up with "dir" is because dir is get-childitem, and that's not a child item of that key, but instead a "property" of the key itself.  The registry provider in PowerShell maps registry keys to items and registry values to properties.

If you use 

Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server'

then you will see it listed

I never like modifying the registry unless that is the only way to do it.  Here are a couple of commands that I use all the time to enable RDC.

#  Enable Remote Desktop
(Get-WmiObject Win32_TerminalServiceSetting -Namespace root\cimv2\TerminalServices).SetAllowTsConnections(1,1) | Out-Null
(Get-WmiObject -Class "Win32_TSGeneralSetting" -Namespace root\cimv2\TerminalServices -Filter "TerminalName='RDP-tcp'").SetUserAuthenticationRequired(0) | Out-Null

This is for running locally, but you can also add a -computername to the gwmi to set it on a remote machine.  Obviously, then you would need to have RPC enabled.

Tim, those Get-WmiObject lines work nicely, except for me on Server 2012 it doesn't enable the secure connection.
Or do I perhaps have to set the 0 to 1 in SetUserAuthenticationRequired?

another way out would be 

Set-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server' -Name fDenyTSConnections -Value 1