Tips and Tricks for Running a Remote Desktop

Save your Connection Details

Before you log into your remote desktop, take a look at the options menu that most people tend to pass over on their way to clicking on the “connect” button. The options button brings up a whole new connection window that has many different expanded options. Among these options is the ability to save your credentials locally. You will need to enter all the login information that you normally use to sign in remotely, but once you have done that and chosen to save those credentials, you’ll be able to sign right in by just clicking the remote desktop icon. This saves time logging on and is especially useful if you usually have one specific machine that you access your remote connection from.

Adjust your Display Options

Many people get frustrated by the fact that a remote desktop usually defaults to a non-maximized screen. Some people even go so far as to avoid using a remote connection because they don’t like the screen layout. As with most things, these problems are easily overcome and can be adjusted to suit your needs. The advanced options of the remote connection include a display tab. On that tab, you can set the default screen size and can even sel ect your remote desktop to run on multiple monitors if you have them. You can also adjust the color depth and graphical layout to match what you are used to on your home computer.

Access to Local Resources

Using a remote gateway is effectively like using another computer. This can be frustrating for people who want to be able to access the resources on the machine they are using. While a remote connection disallows the use of local resources by default as a security measure, there is a way to change that. By accessing the local resources tab under advanced options, you can set what keyboard commands you want to use, such as ALT+TAB or CTRL+ALT+DELETE. You can alter your audio settings, determine what local devices get accessed through the gateway, and even adjust things so your clipboard can transfer data from one machine to another.

Shutting Down and Rebooting

Most of the time, a remote computer will function completely fine without a reboot. In fact, most default setups are configured to make it difficult for a single user to reboot the system, since doing so may disrupt other people’s work. However, even a normally reliable system occasionally has issues. As with a normal computer, many of those issues tend to get resolved through a shutdown and restart process. The Windows shortcut to get to a reboot option is CTRL+ALT+End. This brings up a security dialogue box. Using the command “shutdown -f” will shut the system down, while using the command “shutdown -r -f” will force a reboot. This option is useful but should be used sparingly.

Optimizing for Slow Connections

A particular problem that people face when accessing a remote connection fr om a home computer or mobile device is that not all Internet access points are created equally. If you’re stuck on a slow connection, you can still get work done by clicking on the experience tab in advanced options. This will give you the option to optimize the remote terminal’s performance levels to match the speed of your connection. You can also go back to the display tab and modify things like color depth to improve performance. The main goal should be finding the perfect combination of speed and performance. Once you have set your preferences, you can save them locally to make them the default for the future.

The majority of the above tips focus on a Windows model as the default, but Mac OS X and Linux both have similar options. It’s also important to note that there are many different tools available online that can help you streamline the customization process. For example, many of these settings can be handled by the core Remote Utilities program, which also allows increased security and customization options so you don’t have to comprise anything to get what you want.