MoonPoint Support Weblog

Transferring Files Via the Remote Desktop

If you want to transfer files between your local system and a remote system using the remote desktop software that comes with Windows you can do so via the following procedure (note: this procedure was written for Windows 7, but should be similar for prior versions).

Click on the Start button.
Select All Programs.
Select Accessories.
Select Remote Desktop Connection.
When the Remote Desktop Connection window opens, click on Options.
Click on the Local Resources tab.
Click on the More button.
Click on Drives to share all drives. If yo only want to share some local drives, click on the "+" to the left of drives and select only the drives you want to share.
Click on OK.
Click on Connect.

If you go to My Computer on the remote system or use Windows Explorer, you should see the drives on the local system from which you connected listed among the drives visible on the remote system.

References:

Transfer files via the Remote Desktop
Setup32.com

[/os/windows/software/remote-control/rdp] permanent link

Sun, Feb 24, 2008 11:51 am

Switching Rdesktop from Full-Screen to Windowed Mode

Rdesktop is free, open-source, software that provides the capability for remotely controlling a Microsoft Windows system from a Linux or Unix system.

I sometimes encounter a problem where I can't see the taskbar at the bottom of the Windows display or the bottom of windows displayed on the remote Windows system due to differences in the resolution for the screen on the Linux/Unix system and the resolution of the Windows system. The problem can be resolved by specifying the -f option when starting rdesktop, so that you get a full screen display., e.g. rdesktop -0 -f -u jsmith 192.168.0.44. But what do you do when you wish to put the remote session in a window rather than have it occupy the full screen without disconnecting? You can hit the Ctrl-Alt-Enter keys simultaneously to switch to a windowed view. You can also use Ctrl-Alt-Enter to switch to a full-screen view, if you didn't start redesktop with the -f option.

References:

Rdesktop
Rdesktop.Org
Controlling a Windows System from a Linux System
January 12, 2006
MoonPoint Support

[/os/windows/software/remote-control/rdp] permanent link

Mon, Apr 30, 2007 12:38 am

Thu, Jan 12, 2006 12:47 am

Controlling a Windows System from a Linux System

If you need to remotely control a Windows system from a Linux or Unix system, you can use rdesktop. Rdesktop is an open source client for Windows NT Terminal Server and Windows 2000/2003 Terminal Services, capable of communicating with a Windows system using the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

With rdesktop you get an X Window display on your Linux/Unix system that looks very similar to what you would see if you were sitting at the Windows system. It works much like Windows remote desktop software that allows you to control one Windows system with another.

If you are using a Linux system, rdesktop may already be present. You can check by issuing the command rdesktop. If it isn't present, installing rdesktop is easy. Download the file from www.rdesktop.org, SourceForge.net:rdesktop, or here and then issue the following commands on your Linux or Unix system, subsituting the particular version number you have downloaded:

tar -xvzf rdesktop-1.4.1.tar.gz cd rdesktop-1.4.1 ./configure make make install

You can then run the software with the rdesktop command. E.g., if I wanted to connect to a Windows system with IP address 192.168.0.3, I could issue the command rdesktop 192.168.0.3. If the Windows system is behind a firewall, you will need to open TCP port 3389.

I often boot a Windows system with a Knoppix Linux Live CD when I am working at a site, so that I can be sure that I am working on a secure system rather than a system that may have been compromised by viruses, trojans, spyware, etc. If I need to access a server at the site, such as a Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 server, I can still access it from the system booted into Knoppix Linux with a Live CD by using rdesktop. Knoppix Linux comes with rdesktop, but you may have another Linux Live CD, which doesn't already provide rdesktop. Since you are booting from a Live CD and can't alter its contents, you need to specify a directory that is stored in memory rather than on the CD when you are installing rdesktop. You can do so by using "--prefix" to specify the directory into which you wish to install it. Otherwise, you will get the following error when you attempt to install it.

$ make install mkdir -p /usr/local/bin mkdir: cannot create directory `/usr/local/bin': Permission denied make: *** [installbin] Error 1

To eliminate the problem, you can use the following commands after you have downloaded the software into a virtual disk Live CDs will typically set up in memory. Suppose you have /ramdisk/tmp as such an area and you have made that your working directory.

tar -xvzf rdesktop-1.4.1.tar.gz cd rdesktop-1.4.1 ./configure --prefix=/ramdisk/tmp make make install ./rdesktop 192.168.0.3

Unless you specify otherwise, a new logon session will be established to the system. The current one won't be terminated. But, perhaps a user is already logged onto the system and you wish to connect to the current console session on the system, to see exactly what you would see if you were sitting at the system. Then you should use the -0 option to attach to the console, e.g. rdesktop -0 192.168.0.3. You can specify the userid to use with the -u option, e.g. rdesktop -0 -u administrator 192.168.0.3. You may also want to change the color depth with the -a option. The default value is 8-bit color, which gives you only 256 colors. If you use -a 16, you will get 16-bit color, which is 2 raised to the power of 16 colors, i.e. 65,536 colors. If you use rdesktop alone with no options, you will get a list of other available options for the command.

References:

[/os/windows/software/remote-control/rdp] permanent link

Sat, Mar 13, 2010 10:15 am

Sun, Feb 24, 2008 11:51 am

Mon, Apr 30, 2007 12:38 am

Thu, Jan 12, 2006 12:47 am