Remote Desktop Tips and Tricks

Any feedback on this previous post???Is there any way to use RD without it locking the client machine. I am wanting the client to be able to watch what I am doing and/or show me what is happening to them. I do not however want to do this using remote assistance as this is too much of a hastle. Thanks…

You can use netmeeting instead of remote assistance. You can enable a machine to automatically accept incoming calls. (Location because there is no shortcut on a default windows installation: C:\Program Files\NetMeeting\conf.exe)

Hey guys.

I’ve noticed a very annoying and semi-regular issue using RDP from Windows Xp to Windows 2003.

When I shut down the remote system vua Start-Shutdown, it’s a gamble as to whether the system will shutdown or whether it will just shut down RDP services, thereby meaning I need to physically go and reboot the box.

Any clues/hints?

i have an error when i log on to windows (windows configures ccCommon) this error is comming in my computer.
tell me what can i do with my computer.any software to install or any thing else can you tell me in e mail below.
thanks
sanober_khanpakhtun@yahoo.com

I am trying to remote to my home pc from work in 32 bit color mode, but i cannot do it. I am using RDC 6.0 on both machines. Both of them are windows XP pro. I want to set it up so i cam run some 32 bit apps from work on my home PC, but evertime i try, my home pc gets dumbed down to 16 bit. any ideas?

the solution is quiet simple concerning the resolution issues microsoft guys says that both client and remote computer should have the resolution similar to each other in case if there are any resolution violation between the two the remote computer resolution would always appear different meaning smaller from the client computer

I figured out a way of this what i did i searched the hidden file (named defualt.rdp) just delete the file and u r ready to go on…

the defualt.rdp sometimes get tampered and changes the resolution set in the remote computer…deleting it create a new file with the same but with new settings…

I have been having trouble with a remote desktop connection in which I could connect to the remote machine but only got a gray field, no icons were displayed. To bring up the desktop icons, I used the ctrl-alt-end combo - that brought up the task manager, and the icons all appeared on the desktop. Magic! Hope that helps someone.

Jeff, thanks for the excellent article. Am running a very remote desktop (west-coast Canada to the Netherlands), and often get rather annoying lag on the display. I’ve never thought to limit bit color, but have done so now. Zero lag! Very nice responsiveness. Made my day!

I also welcome the new RDP6 but I still have an issue with them limiting the height @ 2048pixels due that I am running 2 1920x1200 monitors on top of each other and I require a total of 1920x2400 to go full screen. I will try to contact MS to see if I can do something about it.

“I have yet to try any other remote control tool that performs as well.”

Then you haven’t tried NX Client. Granted, it’s for connecting to unix/linux sessions. But it blows away Remote Desktop for speed. It feels like an order of magnitude faster to me.

I can’t get ctrl + alt + del to work with NoMachine NX when connecting from Linux to a RDP desktop (Windows terminal).

System administrators frequently have reason to RDP from one computer to another, therebye having one RDP session within another one, both in full screen. If you are in the child session and move your mouse up to the auto hide title bar, the very first parent window’s name appears, not the current window. It can appear very frustrating to try to close the current (child) window, since your only choice is to act on the parent window’s title bar. The way to minimize/resize/close the window-within-a-window is to float your mouse up to the top of the screen so that the auto hidden title bar of the parent window appears. You’ll notice that just barely on the bottom of that bar is the lip of the bar behind it. Float you mouse to hang on that lip (it can take a little finese). In a moment the parent title disappears and you are left with the child window’s title bar to act on.
You can also resize the parent window to gain access to the child window’s title bar, but that’s obnoxious clunky.

I have been using RDC for years with no problems until recently. I tie into my office computer and work from home a lot. Occasionally I have to reboot the office machine – I use the cntrl-alt-end feature. Recently when i do this, the office machine locks and I have to coerce someone in the office to reboot it. Has anyone else experienced this issue or should I be looking at my office machine to see if something else is causing an issue?

Thanks for the shortcuts, but I have a further problem in that I sometimes have to Remote Desktop to a client’s Server, then Remote Desktop to another of their servers - and the shortcuts only work on the first server. Do you know of any way to get them working on the final server? At the moment I’m faced with one, where the taskbar has disappeared - I’m not sure why or how to get it back!

I’m still trying to get 32-bit color enabled. I’m using console mode so I hope thats not the limiting factor. I’ve got a dedicated server hosted in Texas, that I use limited color (for speed reasons) but I’d like all 4 of my machines on my LAN (gigabit) to be 32-bit and I cannot get any of them to work. XP Pro, XP MCE, or Server 2003.

Yes, all updates are applied and all suggestions mentioned have been tried - even did a clean install of XP Pro on a dev-box machine and it won’t work either. Tried using a laptop running XP Pro (to see if my ‘main’ machine client was fubar’d)…same results.

Any ideas? Thx in advance!

Is there anyway to get RDP to work with multiple monitors and video cards. I have a machine with 3 monitors and 2 cards, when we RDP to the machine it disables the single card and we have to reboot Windows when you physically log into windows to have it display again on the third monitor.

Download new version (6) of remote desktop client from Microsoft.

I remote desktop to one specific (new core2, dual-xeon) using my work domain login, all of the Icons display at a 256 color depth. However applications, web-pages, menu bars display with a greater color depth (16 bit default). When I connect to the same computer using a local account, or a different computer using my domain account, the icons are fine. I have admin priv. on all systems.

Any thoughts?

. Here’s how you run a remote desktop session maximized to a particular monitor:

  1. Start a windowed (non-fullscreen) remote desktop session
  2. Drag the windowed session to the monitor you want
  3. Close the remote desktop session
  4. Set the properties for the connection to “full screen”. It must be “full screen”, not the actual resolution of your monitor (1280x1024, etc).
  5. Start a remote desktop connection; it’ll be full screen on the target monitor

Excellent, this worked great!

Unfortunately the above described keyboard shortcuts like ALT+INSERT do not work in my RDP session.

What are potential root causes for this? Which settings should I verify?

P.S: However, CTRL+ALT+END does work on the RDP target dektop, but all other shortcuts do not work