Work with All of Your Data and Applications While Away from Your Office
Published: March 20, 2001
Sometimes, working your best means getting away from your desk. Working side–by–side at a colleague's desk. Flying cross country to see a client. Working from home while waiting for a plumber. In these situations, you need to be productive away from your desk. But in the past, you couldn't always accomplish everything that you wanted because some data and programs were only available on your office computer.
Now, the Remote Desktop technology in Windows XP Professional gives you full access to your office computer and all your data and programs via the Internet or a corporate network—when you're away from your desk.
When you connect to your computer at work, Remote Desktop automatically locks that computer so no one else can access your applications and files while you are gone. When you come back to your computer at work, you can unlock it with an easy keystroke (CTRL+ALT+DEL).
Remote Desktop makes a variety of scenarios possible, such as:
| • | Working from home: Access work in progress on your office computer from home, including full access to all local and remote devices. |
| • | Collaborating: Bring your computer to a colleague's office to debug some code, update a slide presentation, or proofread a document. |
| • | Sharing a console: Allow multiple users to maintain separate program and configuration sessions on a single computer, such as a teller station or a sales desk. 
|
The Remote Desktop feature is not available in Windows XP Home Edition. However, a computer running Windows XP Home Edition, or any version since Windows 95, can use the client software and Internet access to remotely control a computer that runs Windows XP Professional with Remote Desktop enabled. The client software is available on the installation CD for Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home Edition.
Make the Most of Network Performance
Remote Desktop works well even over low–bandwidth Internet connections, because only the keyboard input, mouse input, and display output data are transmitted over the network to your remote location. On a high–speed network, you'll enjoy exceptional performance.
Advanced Technology Simplified
Remote Desktop is based on the technology behind Terminal Services in Windows NT Server and Windows 2000 Server. Windows XP Professional now makes this technology available and easy for anyone to use.
New Capabilities for End Users
Windows XP Professional adds several capabilities to make Remote Desktop useful for your day–to–day computing. These include:
| • | System redirection. Files on the remote computer are accessible through Remote Desktop as if they were on a network–shared drive. You can save a document on your home computer, and then start Remote Desktop and use programs on your office computer to edit that document. |
| • | Printer redirection. You can work remotely with documents on your office computer, and then print the documents on your printer at home. |
| • | Port redirection. You can use the devices on your home computer and the applications on your office computer together via Remote Desktop. |
| • | Audio. You can run audio–enabled programs on your office computer and hear the sound from speakers on your home computer. |
| • | Clipboard. The Remote Desktop and the client computer share a clipboard that allows data to be interchanged. |
| • | More. Remote Desktop also provides the capability to remotely use power management, offline files and folders and ActiveSync technology. |
Added Security
In the past, remote–control technologies for end users suffered from a security deficiency because anyone in your office could watch your desktop, and see any work you were doing. Remote Desktop solves this by locking your office computer when you connect remotely. Only the logon screen remains visible.
Remote Desktop Web Connection
If you want to have remote control over your computer from any computer on the Internet without installing the client software, you can use Remote Desktop Web Connection. You just enter a Web address to securely connect and control your computer remotely from inside the Internet Explorer browser software.
