Remote Desktop tips

If working connected to the office machine using Remote Desktop set your home machine to a different Windows theme to the work one. Helps remember which is which when working full screen!

Annotation 2020-03-24 083058
Annotation 2020-03-18 182817

If you can adjust BIOS Settings (or your IT Help desk might have to do) some machines have BIOS power settings to automatically restart after a power outage and auto restart if not running at a set time. In our case I set to 06:00 so if accidentally powered off at least you don't have to visit the office to turn on again.

Also there are different shortcut keys for common operations on the Remote Machine (Full details at this Microsoft Help article)

TABLE 1
Shortcut key Description
CTRL+ALT+HOME Activates the connection bar.
CTRL+ALT+BREAK or one of these shortcuts:
  • CTRL+ALT+PAUSE
  • CTRL+ALT+PRTSCN
  • CTRL+ALT+FN+SCRLK
Switches the client between full-screen mode and window mode.
If these shortcuts don't work, or the keys aren't available, you can try the following alternative:
  • Press CTRL+ALT+HOME, TAB, TAB, TAB, TAB, TAB, ENTER. This activates the connection bar, and then presses the Restore down button.
CTRL+ALT+END Brings up the Windows Security dialog box for the Remote Desktop Session Host (RD Session Host) (provides the same functionality as pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL on the local computer).

The following table describes the standard Windows shortcut keys and their equivalent Remote Desktop shortcuts that are different. (For example, Ctrl+Z is generally the 'Undo' shortcut on both standard Windows and Remote Desktop.)

TABLE 2
Windows shortcut Remote Desktop shortcut Description
ALT+TAB ALT+PAGE UP Switches between programs from left to right.
ALT+SHIFT+TAB ALT+PAGE DOWN Switches between programs from right to left.
  ALT+INSERT Cycles through the programs in the order they were started.
Windows key
or
CTRL+ESC
ALT+HOME Displays the Start menu.
ALT+SPACE BAR ALT+DELETE Displays the system menu.
ALT+PRINT SCREEN CTRL+ALT+MINUS SIGN (-) Places a snapshot of the active window, within the client, on the clipboard.
PRINT SCREEN CTRL+ALT+PLUS SIGN (+) Places a snapshot of the entire client windows area on the clipboard .