This webpage is intended to help faculty and staff in the Mathematics Department who use Microsoft Windows to make a Remote Desktop connection to their office PC in order to work from home. For security reasons, Remote Desktop Access is restricted and special permission must be requested and approved before any user will be allowed to use Remote Desktop.
These instructions are for using the newer version 6 of the Remote Desktop Connection. If you have the older version 5, go here. The newer version has a torquise color and the older version is blue.
Failure to follow proper security procedures can and will result in access denial.
If you only have dial-up or a slow internet connection, you can adjust the connection options to Modem (See step 7 below).
Remote Desktop allows users to log into PCs from anywhere in the world and use that PC as if they were sitting right in front of the remote PC. Microsoft has setup some security by encrypting this connection, but some general precautions should be taken anyway. If the files you want to access are security sensitive, then keep this in mind when connecting from public access terminals or even a personal laptop. If other people around you can see your screen, then it's not secure.
| 1. | From the Start Menu, look in Programs or Programs\Communication for the shortcut and click on it. |  |
| 2. | You should see the basic screen. Enter the full name of your office PC and add a colon and the port number. (The port number will be given to you upon your request for Remote Desktop access.) |  |
| 3. | Click on the "Options >>" button to see the advanced view. From the General Tab, replace (pcname) with the name of your PC. (When you make the request to the Administrator, this should be given to you). Then enter your username and password. Be sure to set the Domain to Mathematics. You can click on the Connect button now or you can save these connection settings. (This is recommended if you plan to regularly work from home.) You can also check the "Save my password", if you prefer, to make a connection without typing your password everytime. Click on the Save As button and you can use the default name, Default.rdp, or change it to what you like. |  |
| With a saved profile, you can click on the Open button and select your saved profile, then click on the Connect button to connect. (If you save the connection, the .rdp file is a plain text file and can be easily read. However, if you also saved the password, it is encrypted for security.) | ||
| 4. | Click on the Display tab. You can adjust the screen size of your remote connection to be as small as you want or as large as the remote PC and your internet connection can handle. You can also adjust the color depth from 256 up to True Color (24bit). Be aware that a large screen size and high color resolution can make even a high-speed connection seem slow. That's because it requires more data to be constantly sent over the internet to update changes to the display. I recommend a screen size setting to be the same or one just below the one you are connecting from and set the color resolution to High Color (16bit) or 256 Colors. |  |
| (If you are using the Enterprise version of Windows, you might see an additional option under the Remote Desktop Size section that which says "Use all my monitors for the Remote Session". If enabled, you can get both screens from your office PC to appear in the single Remote Desktop window.) | ||
| 5. | Click on the Local Resources tab. I recommend changing the sound setting to "Leave at remote computer". If you like to use keyboard shortcuts, change the keyboard setting to "On the remote computer". For Local Devices and Resources, I'd suggest unselecting the Printer option, since the PC you are using at home may not have the correct printer drivers installed. If you need to print documents from your office PC at your home, Remote Desktop now allows you to copy files to or from the connected PC's directly. (Be aware that during testing, this did not always work.) |  |
| 6. | Click on the More.. button. Unselect Smart cards and Serial Ports, but select one or more drives you want available to your office PC. If the
PC you are connecting to is named Alpha and you selected the C: drive as a local resource, it should show up as "C on ALPHA" either at the top of the drive list or
at the bottom. An example, can help here. Let's say you have connected to your office PC and you just saved a document to the Y: drive. To get that file onto your home PC and print it at home, you previously had to use SFTP to connect to the Math File Server and copy the file to your PC at home. Then you could print it. |
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| Now after you save the file, open up Explorer (Windows key + E). If you selected C: to be local to your office PC, then just copy the file from Y: to "C on [PCNAME]" and now you should have the file on your home PC. Although you could save files directly to your PC at home, I don't suggest this because if you lose internet connection, you could possible lose the file. | ||
| 7. | The Programs tab can be skipped. This is an advanced option that allows you to run a particular program when logging in remotely. | |
| 8. | Click on the Experience tab. Change the connection speed setting to Modem (28.8 Kbps) for maximum performance. Other settings will allow more visual bells and whistles, but take more time to send across the connection, which results in slower performance. |  |
| 9. | This following steps are only available in the newer updated Remote Desktop that is available from the http://update.microsoft.com
Windows Update page. Click on the Advanced tab. Under "Server Authentication", set the Authentication Options to "Always connect, even if authentication fails". This is useful since this newer version of Remote Desktop may not authenticate correctly the first time. |
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| 10. | You may want to click on the General tab and click on the Save As... button to save the settings for this connection. You will be prompted for a filename. I recommend using the name of the PC. |  |
| 11. | Now click on the Connect button. A Remote Desktop Connection logon window should appear. Change the username to mathematics\ [username] and enter your password in the password textbox. Click OK to continue. |
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| 12. | Remote Desktop will then attempt to verify that you trust the computer you are connecting to. You can enable the "Don't prompt me again for connections to this computer" and you should not have to accept this again. Also, check the "Connected devices" section and enable or disable the available options. Click Yes to continue. |  |
After you connect, you will be logged into your remote PC. To disconnect, click on the Start button and choose Log Off. If you disconnect instead, your office PC will still be logged in, but you will loose connection to it remotely. If you are asked to confirm the disconnect, do so. If you close the remote connection window from the upper right X button, you will be told that this will leave you logged onto the remote PC. If you choose to do so, then you can reconnect later either remotely or locally. The PC will still be logged in, but locked. Only you or an administrator can unlock it, just like when the screen saver locks the PC normally.