I am a huge fan of using Remote Desktop. I use it for accessing my laptop or Tablet PC from my main desktop when I want to use a full sized keyboard and larger screen. It has totally replaced my Belkin KVM switch and the new RDPC client in Vista is pretty nice. However, there are new security settings on it as well.
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When I was doing the Boston Launch for Windows Vista and Microsoft Office Ask The Experts, and I came across a problem I almost couldn’t find an answer to. A person came up to me with a problem that they couldn’t connect to their Windows Vista PC via Terminal Services on their Pocket PC. He claimed (and showed me he had a dual boot machine) he could running Windows XP SP2, but couldn’t when he ran Vista and was asking if there was something he missed. The first thing I did was to check to see if the Windows Firewall allowed such a connection over the standard port
Next I wanted to make sure he had setup his computer to receive remote connections.
So you have to head to Control Panel -> System -> Remote Settings which brings up the System Properties-> Remote Tab.
What I had found was that on his system it was turned off – ‘Don’t allow connections to this computer’. I had thought that was the easy fix to turn it on and match the settings I had, but read on for more.
On my computer it was set to ‘Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication (more secure).’ This was set from the policies at work (and home), but I couldn’t connect to my Windows Mobile Device either when set to this setting.
Once each of our systems were set to ‘Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure)’ it worked with our Windows Mobile Devices.
Now I can use Terminal Services on my Pocket PC with no problems to control the SONOS system I evaluating, my Media Center PC, or any of my home automation software right from the small touch screen in my hand. It looks and works even better on a VGA enabled device like the imate JasJar.
I only hope in the next version of Windows Mobile the Terminal Services client will support Network Level Authentication.
Written by Steven Hughes - Visit Website
