So you use Remote Desktop to connect to a remote Windows system ? Remote Desktop Connection can come in pretty useful when you need to connect to a remote system be it for work, for some files which are in your home PC or just for solving some technical problem you friend is facing.
Once connected, Remote Desktop gives you mouse and keyboard control over your computer while showing you everything that’s happening on the screen. With Remote Desktop, you can leave your computer at the office without losing access to your files, applications, and e-mail.
What Remote Desktop basically allows you to do is work on a remote desktop system as if you are sitting in front of it. So here are two tips which can help you utilize Remote Desktop for Microsoft Windows even better.
1. Transfer files between local system and remote system
Using Remote Desktop for Windows, you can easily transfer files to and fro between your local system and remote system. All you need to do is turn on a simple setting in Remote Desktop.
Open Remote Desktop and go to Options. Then click on “Local Resources” tab and tick the checkbox “Disk Drives” under Local Devices. Now you will be able to transfer files between the local and remote system.
2. Shutdown Remote System using Remote Desktop
By default, Remote Desktop does not give you an option to shutdown the Remote System. Instead you get a “Disconnect” option. But you can still shutdown the system. Here is how. When you finish working on the Remote System, open a command prompt and type shutdown -s.
The remote system will be shutdown after 60 seconds and then you will be disconnected.
That’s it. Do you use Remote Desktop ? What do you like about it ?
12 comments ↓
Do a “shutdown -s -t 00″ - that will shut it down instantly.
The ‘-t’ flag is the time setting.
There are two major shortcomings of Remote Desktop -
1. It logs you off on local desktop - two people cannot use it simultaneously.
2. No support for dual monitors!
That’s why use VNC instead - it’s much more powerful (although it doesn’t let you share drives)
Thanks for the tip Vivek….
About that local user getting logged off, I came across this. Don’t know if it works.
You can use ctrl-alt-end to bring up Windows Task Manager. Then you can choose to shut down or even restart.
Thanks for the tip, Hidenori …
I tried the first one and when sharing files over the internet through Remote desktop, it said cannot copy file from the source. I was trying to copy content from a US machine from India. It was not successful.
Hmm… Strange.. I can easily copy files using that method. What error does it show ?
It says Cannot read from the source disk.
Hmm… Can you see your local system partitions in “My Computer” of your remote system ?
I can see all the drives in the remote machine and I”m the admin of that PC, but I think its because it gets connected through citrix and not the normal remote desktop.
Ok.. That may be the problem.
Learning a Lot from the comments getting from this wonderful webpage… Thanx…
Can Anybody guide me the following :
I’d enabled my desktop to remote mode. Is it possible to permit only maximum one or two users only to access my remote desktop…. By assigning by IP Address or Computer Name…. Expecting Reply Thanx…
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