If you don’t know what RDP is, you probably had missed a great feature all years long since Windows XP. Yes, it’s a protocol that allows you remote control and manage your pc that runs XP or later, and it’s built right in the operation system since Windows XP. If you had used a paid 3rd party that does the same thing, sorry, you had wasted your hard earned money on something that’s already offered in the system for free.
In order to use it, you will have to first enable it on the system that you want to remote control. To do so, you can right-click My Computer and go to Properties, and click Remote Settings on the left panel that opens another window.
Choosing either option 2 or 3 enables the remote desktop on the computer. The difference between these two options is whether you allow a more secure connection connecting through. The option 3, “Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication”, is only available since Vista, which also only allow Remote Desktop Client version 6 or later connect through. If you are not so sure, option 2 is fine in the most cases as well.
And of course, if you want to turn it off, you can choose the first radio button which states “Don’t allow connections to this computer”. Click OK to have the change taken effect.
Also, if you don’t have the physical access to the computer that you want to control, you can also remotely enable this by using this trick:
- Open Regedit from Start, Run, “regedit”, ok
- Select Connect Network Registry option from the File Menu.
- Once connect to the remote computer’s registry, browse HKLM to find the following registry key
KLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server - Double-click the REG-DWORD fDenyTSConnection, and change the value from 1 (disabled) to 0 (enabled).
- The computer might need to reboot to take the change effect.
Once all set, you can use Remote Desktop Connection which is installed by default during the OS installation to connect to the remote computer and start enjoying the moment taking over the computer remotely.
Click Start Menu, typing in Remote Desktop, and hit OK, the following window pops up.
Typing in the computer name or IP address in the computer box, and click Connect. Once connected, you will be on the desktop on the remote computer in either full screen or the designated screen resolution. Sometimes, the following keyboard shortcuts may help you operate the remote computer just like you are sitting in front of it.
That’s it for now, and we will be covering more on this topic a little later.