Setting Up the Remote Computer as a Host

Remote Desktop is easy to configure and use, but it does require a small amount of prep work to ensure trouble-free operation. Let's begin with the remote computer, also called the host computer. The next few sections tell you how to set up a machine to act as a Remote Desktop host.

Windows Versions That Can Act as Hosts

The first thing you need to know is that not all versions of Windows can act as Remote Desktop hosts:

• With Windows 7 and Windows Vista, the only versions that support Remote Desktop are Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate.
• If you want to use a Windows XP computer as the host, you can use any version except XP Home.

Setting Up User Accounts on the Host

For security reasons, not just anyone can connect to a remote computer's desktop. By default, Windows gives permission to connect remotely to the host to the following:

• The user who is currently logged on to the host machine
• Members of the host's Administrators and Remote Desktop Users groups

Note, however, that all of these users must have password-protected accounts to use Remote Desktop.

For anyone else, if you want to give a person permission to connect to the host remotely, you first need to set up an account for the username with which you want that person to connect from the client, and you must assign a password to this account.