Remote desktop connection to windows

To do so, just follow these simple steps:. As previously mentioned, Remote Desktop only works on a local network by default. To access it over the internet, you will need to do one of the following things:. Connect the host computer to the internet directly via an open port on your router most insecure method and not recommended.

We recommend method 3 because this is the easiest way to access your computer remotely using Windows RDP. Once you have got a subscription to a VPN that has these features, follow these steps:. Set up your host computer the one running Windows Pro or Enterprise edition using Part 1 of this guide. Connect that PC to your dedicated IP address.

The VPN provider must provide port forwarding on your dedicated IP, otherwise you will not be able to bypass the NAT firewall to access your remote desktop.

The solution is to use a third party remote desktop program instead. The good news is that using third party software to connect to your computer remotely is actually considered more secure than using Windows RDP. This is because RDP was not intended for accessing a computer desktop via the internet and was not developed with security in mind.

As a result, there is no real protection against brute force attacks, and hackers are known to use bots to search the net for RDP servers to exploit.

You can download any of these easy to use remote desktop clients by following the links above. To use them, simply install the software on both of your machines and follow the instructions provided by the services.

Use the Microsoft Remote Desktop app to connect to a remote PC or virtual apps and desktops made available by your admin. The app helps you be productive no matter where you are. Getting Started Configure your PC for remote access first. Stay informed about special deals, the latest products, events, and more from Microsoft Store. Available to United States residents. By clicking sign up, I agree that I would like information, tips, and offers about Microsoft Store and other Microsoft products and services.

Privacy Statement. Microsoft Remote Desktop. See System Requirements. Available on HoloLens. Description Use the Microsoft Remote Desktop app to connect to a remote PC or virtual apps and desktops made available by your admin.

Show More. People also like. Windows Insider Free. The size of the client area can be specified via the View menu, as well as resizing the RDCMan window. Use [View. Lock window size] to prevent the window from being resized by dragging the frame.

Caution: Connected servers can receive focus from keyboard navigation of the thumbnail view. It is not always obvious which server has focus, so be careful. There is a setting to control this: [Display Settings. Allow thumbnail session interaction]. Multiple monitors can be spanned if enabled by the monitor spanning option.

You can find the full list of Terminal Services shortcut keys here. Some of these can be configured from the Hot Keys tab. The top-level unit of organization in RDCMan is a remote desktop file group. Servers can't live outside of a group and groups can't live outside of a file.

A group contains a list of servers and configuration information such as logon credentials. Configuration settings can be inherited from another group or the application defaults. Groups can be nested but are homogenous: a group may either contain groups or servers, but not both.

All the servers in a group can be connected or disconnected at once. When a group is selected in the tree view, the servers underneath it are displayed in a thumbnail view. The thumbnails can show the actual server windows or simply the connection status.

Global thumbnail view properties can be adjusted via the [Tools. Smart groups are populated dynamically based on a set of rules. All ancestors of sibiling groups of the smart group are eligible for inclusion. When a server is in the connected state, it is automatically added the to Connected virtual group. Servers cannot be explicitly added or removed from the Connected group. There are sometimes situations where a server disconnects and will be intentionally offline for an unspecified length of time, e.

When this is the case, drag the server in question to the Reconnect group. RDCMan will continually attempt to connect to the server until it is successful. The Favorites virtual group is a flat file of your favorite servers. You can add any server from the server tree. This is helpful when you have many servers in the tree and often work with a handful of servers from different groups. The Connect To Virtual Group contains the servers that are not members of user-created groups. See Ad Hoc Connections for details.

The Connect To group is visible while ad hoc connections exist and disappears when there are none. A server has a server name the computer's network name or IP address , an optional display name, and logon information.

The logon information may be inherited from another group. Servers can be imported into a group from a text file. The file format is simply one server name per line:.

All servers are imported into the same group with the same preferences. If a server is imported that has the same name as an existing server, the existing server's preferences are updated to the new ones. Ad hoc server connections can be created via the [Session. Connect to] feature. These servers will be added to the Connect To Virtual Group. From there they can be converted into real servers by moving them to a user-created group.

In the [Connection Settings] tab, enter the role name and role instance name into Load balance config as described here e. Certain key combinations and Windows actions can be tricky to perform over the remote session--particularly when RDCMan itself is started within a remote session--e. These are available from the [Session. Send keys] and [Session.

Remote actions] menu items. The [Tool. Options] menu item brings up the Options Dialog. Global settings, e. Most server-related options, e. Check the auto-save check box and specify the interval in minutes for saving. An interval of 0 will not save periodically but will suppress the save prompt when exiting RDCMan. Prompt to reconnect connected servers on startup RDCMan remembers which servers where connected when the program was exited. On the next run you are prompted to choose which servers to reconnect.

Disabling this option automatically reconnects all previously connected servers. See Command Line for command line switches that affect this behavior.

Default group settings Clicking this button opens a dialog to configure the settings for the base level of the inheritance hierarchy.

Click to select gives focus to remote client When selecting a node in the server tree control with a mouse click, the default behavior is to keep focus on the tree control. There is an option to change this to focus on the selected server.

Dim nodes when the tree control is inactive RDCMan can dim the tree control when it is inactive. This presents a more obvious visual distinction of keyboard focus.

The options are also available from the [View. Client size] menu. Thumbnail Unit Size The thumbnail unit size can be specified as an absolute pixel size or a relative percentage of the client panel width.