Establishing a Remote Desktop Session

After the host computer has been configured to enable Remote Desktop for authorized users and the RDP client software has been configured and deployed on the client computer, the user can initiate establishment of a Remote Desktop session with the remote host computer by using one of the following methods:

• Double-click the desired *.rdp file (or a shortcut to this file) and (if required) click Yes. Then specify your credentials for connecting to the host computer (if required).
• Open a command prompt and type mstsc rdp_file, where rdp_file is the name of the desired *.rdp file (specifying the path may be required) and (if required) click Yes. Then specify your credentials for connecting to the host computer, if required.

When a Remote Desktop session has been established, the client can end the session in two ways:

• By disconnecting This ends the Remote Desktop experience on the client computer but leaves the session running on the host computer so that the client can reconnect later if desired. Any applications running in the session on the host continue to run until this session is terminated, either by the user on the client (who must reconnect and then log off) or by a user logging on interactively to the host.
• By logging off This ends the Remote Desktop experience on the client computer and terminates the session on the host computer as well.

Note You can also remotely shut down the host computer to which you are remotely connected, or you can put it into Sleep mode. To do this from within a Remote Desktop session, click the taskbar, press Alt+F4, and then choose the option you want to select. You can also open a command prompt in your Remote Desktop session and type shutdown -s -t 0 to immediately shut down the host computer or shutdown -r -t 0 to immediately restart it. (Be sure to save any open files first.)