Tip of the Day: Some new Remote Desktop Client Features

Today’s tip…

How do I get the Start screen to come up in a remote session?

If you’ve remoted into a Windows Server 2012 host or Windows 8 client using a legacy RDP client and wanted to get to the start menu, you may have already come across this annoying issue with the start menu.

If I hit the Windows key – often I get the local Start. If I put the mouse in the bottom left of my screen – is that the local Start or the one in the Remote Desktop window?

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(The green one is my local Start screen – ack!)

Fortunately the RDP Connection Bar on the RDP client has been updated to accommodate Start, Charms, Switching Apps, Snap and App Commands.

Using these options, you can ensure the commands are being sent to the remote Host.

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Smart Sizing!

How many times have you been annoyed with the annoying scroll bars when your RDP client gets moved to another monitor? Well – NO MORE!

The new RDP client has an option to use “Smart Sizing”.

So instead of scrollbars, you get scaled resolution:

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Smart Sizing can be selected on the Control menu when the RDP window is not full screen.

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The downside of both of these is there’s no new client available for Windows 7 (yet). You have to run Windows 8 or Server 2012 to get the new client.