December 21, 2003
This
guide assumes that you have already read and understand what Remote Desktop
is all about. If you haven't looked at it yet, please read: Remote
Desktop Overview
You
must also have already performed this step: Installing
Remote Desktop (Standard) Host
Once you install the Remote
Desktop Client, we can use it.
Start --> Programs --> Accessories
--> Communications --> Remote Desktop Connection
Click on "Options>>"
Computer
-
Type in the domain name or IP
address of your computer running Remote Desktop Host.
Username
-
Type in the name of a user on
the Remote Desktop Host computer. Note that this user must have a
password. If you usually log into the host computer without a password,
you must create a password for that account to use it with Remote Desktop.
They do this for security reasons.
Password
-
Guess what you put here? (Your
password)
Domain
You can then choose to "Save
your password" or not. Generally, I don't having my password saved,
but if this client machine is secured by a password itself and won't be
accessed by other people, go ahead and save it.
Click on the "Display" tab.
Here you can choose the Remote Desktop window size and color depth.
I usually like to go Full Screen with 16 bit, but this really depends on
your connection speed and what is acceptable to you. Play with this
setting as you like.
Click on the "Local Resources"
tab. Here you can customize your connection ever further. For
example, by default, the sound on the remote computer (host) transferred
to the client machine. This means that when you connect to the remote
computer and play MP3's for example, you'll hear the music because it will
be streamed over to the client computer.
Another thing that is pretty
neat is that you can control whether local disk drives, printers, and serial
ports are mapped to the remote computer (host). When you check the
box "Disk drives" and try to connect, you'll see this message which warns
that mapping your drives to a remote computer may be dangerous.
When you do connect with
mapped disk drives, your local (client) drives appear as disk drives on
the remote computer (host). They show up as "Others". Here
is what it looks like in "My Computer" with the local drives mapped to
the host.
Click on the "Programs" tab.
Here you can automatically start a program every time you connect to a
Remote Desktop. You can leave this blank.
Click on the "Experience"
tab. Here you optimize the connection speed between the Remote Desktop
Host and Client. The drop down box is the same as the check boxes,
since they modify each other. I would suggest that you only leave
"Bitmap caching" checked since this will give you the best performance.
Now, to connect, just click
on the "Connect" button. This will take you right into the Remote
Desktop. However, let's save this profile first so don't have to
enter all these settings each time we use this program. Click "Save
As".
Use a descriptive name for
the connection and save it to your desktop. Now you'll have an icon
your desktop with the name you entered. "Monkey Fun" in this example.
Now to connect to the Remote
Desktop Host, just double click on the saved icon on your desktop.
Now that's really handy.
By default, there will be
a toolbar at the top of the screen which you can use to minimize, maximize,
or close the Remote Desktop Window. I like working the Remote Desktop
in full screen mode, but you can also run it as simply another window on
your local computer.
You can sever the connection
at anytime and whatever you were working on in the remote computer will
continue. You are simply disconnected.
Disconnect by:
- Clicking the "X" on the
toolbar of the Remote Desktop
- Select "Disconnect" from
the Start menu of the Remote Desktop
- Or close the window in
which the Remote Desktop is running in.
When you disconnect, you
may see this message:
This next guide shows you
how to restart and reboot the Host computer over Remote Desktop:
Reboot
or Shutdown Host Computer Using Remote Desktop
Also there is an additional
guide here that may be of interested to you:
Remote
Desktop - Changing the Port Number (for security and multiple hosts)
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