Atlantic.Net Blog

How to Set Up Remote Desktop on Your Windows Server

Verified and Tested 03/22/2015

Introduction

In this how-to, we will walk you through how to use Remote Desktop to access your Windows Server.

Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft, which provides a user with a graphical interface to connect to another computer over a network connection. The user employs RDP client software for this purpose while the other computer must run RDP server software.

Prerequisites

– A Server with Windows Server 2012. If you do not have a server already, you can visit our VPS hosting page and spin one up in under 30 seconds.

How to Remote Desktop

All Windows computers come pre-installed with Remote Desktop Connection. You can find this by going to Start and typing “Remote Desktop Connection” or “mstsc.” Once you see Remote Desktop Connection, click on it to open.

Enter your hosts name or IP into Remote desktop Connection

Remote desktop Connection

When you have opened Remote Desktop Connection, you must enter the computer name or IP address of the computer/server. Once you have entered either one, then click Connect.

Once you have clicked on Connect, you will be prompted if you trust this connection. If you do and do not want to see this message again, check the box beside “Don’t ask me again for connections to this computer.”  Also, if you would like to connect your local drives, printers, or clipboard, click on the Show Details at the bottom left.

If you would like to connect your local drives, printers or clipboard, then click on the Show Details at the bottom left.

Details

 

After clicking on Show Details, you will be able to check the boxes of which ones you would like connected as well.

If you would like to connect your local drives, printers or clipboard, then click on the Show Details at the bottom left.

Details

After you are done choosing which options you would like, click on Connect. You will then be prompted for the Username and password to log in to your remote computer/server.

Enter your remote hosts username and password.

Windows security

Once you have entered the Username and Password, you can check the box next to “Remember my credentials” if you want to. Once you are ready, then click on OK.

Now you should be connected to the remote server.

 

See our VPS hosting price.

Get a $250 Credit and Access to Our Free Tier!

Free Tier includes:
G3.2GB Cloud VPS a Free to Use for One Year
50 GB of Block Storage Free to Use for One Year
50 GB of Snapshots Free to Use for One Year