How to connect to a Computer/PC on Local Area Network through Remote Desktop Connection.

Windows platform has provided network administrators with a very cool utility with the help of which, they can easily connect to a computer on a network and use it as their own. This is done with the help of Remote Desktop Connection.

In this article, I will discuss the options and facilities, which RDC provides us, in detail.

How to enable RDC on computer:

To enable RDC on a specific computer, right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and select properties. Now select a tab with Remote as the title.  For windows 7 and 8, right click My Computer icon and after selecting properties, select remote settings in options available at the left of the window. Here you will see a radio button. Check the radio button to allow remote computers to connect to you through RDC.

Now that you have enabled the RDC, try connecting to your computer from another PC on the network.

1)      First, open the RDC utility.

For Windows XP, you can find that under Start>All programs>Accessories>Communications

For windows 7, type ‘remote’ in the search field in start menu and you will get the RDC. Click on that to open the utility.

For windows 8, use search in the sidebar options.

2)    Options in RDC utility.

a)      In General settings tab, you can write the name or the IP address of the computer you want to connect to. In the second field, specify the user name of the PC you want to connect to. In this tab, there is also an option to save the settings and to load the settings which a user sets in this console.

b)      In the next tab, you can select the display options of your RDC window like color depth and window size.

c)       Third tab provides us with a very handy facility in RDC. Here you can select the hardware resources of the PC from which the RDC is being made. You can select audio settings, keyboard settings and most importantly devices settings. In devices settings, you can select any drive on the host PC and it will be shown as a mapped network drive when you will open My Computer in the remotely connected PC through RDC utility. And you will be able to use the hard drive to transfer the files.

d)      Next tab allows us to select the programs we want to be run when we connect RDC.

 

e)      Experience Tab gives us options regarding our connection speed. We are connecting to a LAN PC here so select LAN.

f)       Advanced settings as the name suggests are for advanced users and must not be altered if you are not. These settings are used to select gateways for you RDC. So, leave this tab with the automatically selected settings applied and move on.

Now that you have set the RDC according to your need, you can connect to your PC. You have to know the IP address of you PC which can easily be found in the network properties or typing ‘ipconfig /all’ in the command prompt. It will be like ‘192.168.1.x’.

Type the IP address of your PC in the computer name field in the general tab and click connect. When asked for the username and password enter them and click OK and you will be connected. Have Fun!

Regards

RehanSiddiqui