Connecting via Remote Desktop Connection

Once you’ve chosen settings as outlined in the previous section, you’re ready to connect. If you’re connecting via the Internet rather than a local network and you have a dial-up connection, make sure it’s up and running. To connect via Remote Desktop Connection, follow these steps:

1. Click the Connect button in the Remote Desktop Connection window. Windows displays the Windows Security dialog box. The Windows Security dialog box may contain a user-name for the remote PC and a Use Another Account button, as shown here, or it may simply contain a blank User Name text box and a Password text box. 2. If your username appears, type your password in the Password text box; if you need to log on using another user’s credentials, click the Use Another Account button, and then type the username and password. Otherwise, type your username and password in the text boxes. If you want to skip this step in the future for this connection, select the Remember My Credentials check box.

3. Click the OK button. If you chose to share local devices, Windows displays the Remote Desktop Connection: Do You Trust the Computer You Are Connecting To? dialog box to make sure you understand that supplying your credentials to the remote computer, and making any local devices such as drives and the Clipboard available to it may be a security risk.

4.If you decide you don’t want to share your local drives, clear the Allow Access to Your Local Disk Drives check box. If you choose not to share your Clipboard, clear the Allow Access to Your Local Clipboard check box.

5. If you want to suppress the security warning in future, select the Don’t Prompt Me Again for Connections to This Computer check box, and then click the Yes button. Otherwise, click the Yes button if you want to proceed with the connection. Windows tries to connect to the remote computer. If Windows is able to connect to the computer, it logs you on, and you can start working. If you left a user session active on the computer, Remote Desktop Connection drops you straight into it, and you can pick up where you left off. Similarly, if you left a user session running but disconnected, and no other user session is active, you can resume that user session. The next sections show you what happens if your credentials don’t work, if another user is using the computer when you try to log on, or Windows can’t connect to the remote computer.

Specifying Other Credentials

If you don’t enter your password in the Windows Security dialog box when you connect to the remote computer, or if your username or password are not accepted, Windows displays the Windows Security dialog box again. Either type your password again under your username, or click the Use Another Account button, type the username and password, and then click the OK button. As before, you can select the Remember My Credentials check box to make Remote Desktop Connection store your username and password for future use.

Deciding What to Do When Another User Is Active

If another user is active on the remote computer when you submit a successful logon and password, Windows displays a Logon Message screen to tell you that another user is logged on and will have to disconnect if you continue. Click the Yes button if you want to proceed. Click the No button to withdraw stealthily. If you click the Yes button, the active user gets a Remote Desktop Connection dialog box, as shown here, telling them that you it specifies your name are trying to connect to the computer and gives them 30 seconds to decide whether to disconnect so that you can connect or cancel your connection. If the user clicks the OK button, or doesn’t click either button within 30 seconds, Remote Desktop Connection disconnects their session and connects your session. If the user clicks the Cancel button, Remote Desktop Connection displays a screen on your local computer saying that the user “denied your disconnect request.” Either click the OK button or simply wait a few seconds, and Remote Desktop Connection times out the connection and closes it, returning you to the Remote Desktop Connection window.

When Remote Desktop Connection Cant Connect

If Windows is unable to establish the connection with the remote computer, it displays a Remote Desktop Disconnected dialog box, as shown here. Click the OK button to close the dialog box and return to the Remote Desktop Connection dialog box, in which you can check that you’ve entered the correct computer name or IP address.

Working via Remote Desktop Connection

Once you’ve reached the remote Desktop, you can work more or less as if you were sitting at the computer. The few differences worth mentioning are discussed briefly in this section.

Using Keyboard Shortcuts

Most mouse actions are straightforward with Remote Desktop Connection: If the remote connection is shown full screen, or if mouse pointer is in the Remote Desktop Connection window, mouse clicks and movements go to the remote computer. For full-screen Remote Desktop Connection sessions, use the normal keyboard shortcuts.

Using Cut, Copy, and Paste between the Local and Remote Computers

If you’ve chosen to share the Clipboard between the home computer and the remote computer, you can use Cut, Copy, and Paste commands to transfer information between the computers. For example, you could copy some text from a program on the local computer, and then paste it into a program on the remote computer. Or you could use the Ctrl+Alt+– the minus key on the numeric keypad keystroke to copy the active window to the Clipboard, and then paste it into a window on the local computer.

Copying from Remote Drives to Local Drives

If you chose to make drives on the home computer available to the remote computer, you can copy from remote drives to local drives by working in Explorer. The drives on your local computer appear in Explorer windows on the remote computer as network drives named Driveletteron COMPUTERNAME, where COMPUTERNAME is the name of the local computer. The drives on the remote computer appear as regular drives. You can copy and move files from one drive to another as you would with local drives. Depending on the speed of your connection to the remote computer, copying large files from one computer to another may take a while.

Printing to a Local Printer

You can print to a local printer from the remote Desktop by selecting the local printer in the Print dialog box just as you would any other printer. Printer settings are communicated to the remote Desktop when you access it. If you add a local printer during the remote session, the remote Desktop won’t be able to see it. To make the printer show up on the remote Desktop, log off the remote session and log back on.

Returning to Your Local Desktop

If you have the remote Desktop displayed in a window rather than full screen, you can return to the home computer’s Desktop by clicking anywhere outside the Remote Desktop Connection window. But if the remote Desktop is displayed full screen, you need to use the connection bar to return to your home computer’s Desktop. If you chose to display the connection bar, it hovers briefly at the top of the screen, and then slides upward to vanish like a docked toolbar with its Autohide property enabled. To pin the connection bar in position, click the pin icon at its left end. To unpin it, click the pin icon again. To display the connection bar when it has hidden itself, move the mouse pointer to the top edge of the screen, just as you would do to display a docked toolbar hidden there. The connection bar provides a Minimize button, a Restore/Maximize button, and a Close button. Use the Minimize and Restore buttons to reduce the remote Desktop from full screen to an icon or a partial screen so that you can access your local Desktop. Maximize the remote Desktop window to return to full-screen mode when you want to work with it again. Use the Close button as discussed in the next section to disconnect your remote session.