Remotely control Windows XP from older operating systems
John Sheesley
Published: 06 May 2003 12:31 BST
From a support tech's point of view, one of the most useful new features in Windows XP is the Remote Desktop feature. With it, you can remotely access a Windows XP workstation without having to personally visit the user's desk. Almost everything you can do sitting in front of the machine, you can do from the relative comfort of your cubicle.
If there's one major drawback to Remote Desktop, though, it's that you need to be running Windows XP from the machine you're on to access the remote Windows XP workstation.
At least, that was a drawback until Microsoft released a version of the Remote Desktop Client for older operating systems. Now, even if you're running an antiquated Windows 95 workstation, you can still remotely access the newest Windows XP workstation or even a Windows XP Tablet PC workstation.
What is it and where can I get it?
The Remote Desktop Client ships with every version of Windows XP as a part of XP's Remote Desktop feature. Think of the client and the host versions of Remote Desktop as a mini-version of Terminal Services.
The host runs on the machine you want to access, and the client on your desktop. Like VNC or PCAnywhere, Remote Desktop allows you to temporarily take over the host machine, translating mouse movements and keyboard commands from your workstation across the network.
Remote Desktop works well, but as shipped, it works only with Windows XP workstations. If your workstation runs any other version of Windows, you're out of luck. If you need to access the host system, you either have to physically go to the machine or rely on a non-Microsoft solution like VNC or PCAnywhere.
To solve this problem, Microsoft released a version of the Remote Desktop client that runs on Windows 2000 Professional, as well as comparatively ancient operating systems like Windows NT Workstation, Windows 98, and Windows 95.
You can obtain the Remote Desktop Client from Microsoft's Download Centre. The file you need to download, Msrdpcli.exe, is only 3.4MB, so it won't take very long to download. This file is also the installer for the client, so you can either save it to a temporary directory on your workstation or just run the file directly from the Web site.
Installation and configuration
If you don't open the file directly from the Web site, you must double-click the Msrdpcli.exe file to install the client. This begins a Microsoft Installer-based wizard that is fairly simple to use. Just click your way through the wizard. There's only one potential gotcha and that's when you get to the Customer Information screen on a Windows 2000 Professional or Windows NT Workstation computer.
On this screen, you can choose to have the Installer allow the program to be available only to the user ID you've logged into your computer with or to all logged-in users. My recommendation is to make it available to all logged-in users.
After you've installed the Remote Desktop client, you can start it by clicking Start | Programs | Accessories | Communications | Remote Desktop Connection.
When you do, you'll see the Remote Desktop Connection screen shown in Figure A.
Figure A
- You can run the Remote Desktop client on just about any version of Windows.
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