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(Windows) Advanced Remote Desktop Connection Options for Windows - Knowledgebase / Windows - SOU IT Help Desk

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(Windows) Advanced Remote Desktop Connection Options for Windows

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  • Last updated: May 29, 2025 by Caleb Dizmang

The Remote Desktop Connection program in Microsoft Windows offers many advanced features found in the program. This article goes over a few to help assist in enhancing your experience.

 

All of these features are available after clicking the down arrow next to Options in the Remote Desktop Connection window.

Picture of the Remote Desktop Connection window. It has fields for the server you want to connect to under the computer field and it has a none specified entry for the username due to the computer field being blank. The bottom left corner of the window has an Options field with a downward facing arrow preceding it

Display

  • By default, Remote Desktop Connection runs full screen and at a color depth of 32-bit.  

  • By clicking the Display tab, you can adjust the resolution and color depth.  

  • If you have multiple monitors on the computer you are connecting from, you can check the box to Use all my monitors for the remote session so that you can use all of your displays.

  • To see the remote screen in a window instead of full screen, simply adjust the slider from large to small.  

Note

It is not usually necessary to adjust color depth, but lower color depths will improve performance (below 16-bit color, you will notice significant dithering and unusual colors).

Picture of the display tab after hitting the options button at the beginning of this menu. Under it there are subsections named display configuration and colors. There is a slider that has the options small on the left and Large on the right with a note that at the Largest setting the display will be in full screen. There is a check box directly under that stating Use all my monitors for the remote session. Under that is the Colors subsection. There is a dropdown menu for choosing the color depth of the remote session. Under that is an option in a checkbox format that states Display the connection bar when I use the full screen. Under that is the options button with the arrow pointed up instead of down, the Connect button, and the Help button from left to right.

Local Resources 

  • After clicking the Local Resources tab, you should see the screen below.  

Picture of the Local Resources tab. Under are the subsections Remote audio, keyboard, and local devices and resource. Under the Remote audio subsection it a Settings button. Under the keyboard section there is an option to allow certain windows keys in the remote computer. Finally there is the Local devices and resources subsection with two check boxes and a more button. The checkboxes are Printers and Clipboard.

  • Click Settings under Remote audio to adjust playback (speakers) and recording (microphone) options.

    • You can choose not to play sound, or to play it on your local computer using the Play on this computer option.

    • You can also allow the remote computer to use your local microphone for audio input, or disable it.

Picture of the Remote audio settings. In this picture there are two subsections called remote audio playback and remote audio recording. Under the remote audio playback option there are three options which are play on this computer, do not play, and play on remote computer. Under that the options for remote audio recording are record from this computer and do not record. At the bottom left there are the ok and cancel buttons.

  • To print from your session of Remote Desktop Connection to your personal printer, check the Printers box and click Connect. (Not all printers are supported.)

  • To access a local drive -such as a flash drive- first click the More button. Then find your drive from the list below the Local devices and resources section.

    • It is recommended that you select the (C:) drive -or your main drive- if you want access to files on your computer during your Remote Desktop Connection session.

    • You can also select Drives that I plug in later so that you don’t have to individually select new drives every time you add them.

    • When you're finished, click the OK button.

Picture of the Local devices and resources subsection after clicking on the more button. Highlighted here is the checkbox Drives and checked are the Windows (C:) drive and the Drives that I plug in later. There is an ok and cancel button at the bottom right of the window.

Experience

  • The settings on the Experience tab allow you to disable certain features to improve performance or enable features to change the appearance of the remote desktop.  

  • You can change your connection speed to optimize performance.

Picture of the Remote Desktop Connection apps Experience tab. It has the subsection of Performance. There is a dropdown menu under that which has a prompt of choosing your connection speed to optimize performance. The options in the dropdown menu on the picture are modem, low-speed broadband, satellite, high-speed broadband, WLAN, and LAN which progressively get higher in speed from top to bottom where the top is 56 Kbps and the bottom is 10 Mbps or higher. There are a few checkboxes such as Visual styles and persistent bitmap caching. There is another checkbox item after that which states Reconnect if the connection is dropped. Finally there is the options, connect, and help buttons at the bottom.

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This Article Category Knowledgebase
Author
Brad Christ
Creation date
Jun 7, 2012
Last update
May 29, 2025
Publish date
Jun 7, 2012