Installing and Configuring Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac

Transcription

1 Installing and Configuring Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac comes bundled with Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac, but you can also get it for free at the Microsoft Download Center. Once the Remote Desktop Connection2.1_ALL.dmg file mounts, double-click RDC Installer.mpkg to install the client.

2 Follow the on-screen instructions and click Continue when prompted. Make sure you read through the Software License Agreement before clicking Continue.

3 By default, the Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac installer will choose the hard drive where OS X is installed as the install location. Click Install. Wait for the installer to finish installing the Remote Desktop Connection Client.

4 After the installation finishes, click Close. Now, you can launch Remote Desktop Connection from your Dock.

5 Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac Preferences When you first launch Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac, you can go ahead and launch a connection using the default settings. But for the best performance and security, you may want to set up some preferences first. Begin by typing the name of a computer into the Computer field. If you re not sure what the name of your computer is, you can find it in the System Properties pane on your Windows-based machine. NOW TYPE IN: home.st-james.devon.sch.uk in the blank box

6 Access the Preferences for the connection you have open by clicking the Remote Desktop Connection menu and clicking Preferences. The Login tab lets you choose your user name, password and domain. The user name and password correspond to an administrator level user account on the host machine, or a standard level user account which has been enabled for Remote Desktop Connection connections. In other words, type in the same user name and password that you would use if you were sitting right in front of the computer and logging in locally. The domain should already be filled in with the computer name. Lastly, you can select Add user information to your keychain, which saves you from entering these credentials next time. OS X users will recognize the keychain as Mac OS s system-wide password manager. Choose Reconnect automatically if disconnected if you d like Remote Desktop Connection to attempt to reconnect if the connection is interrupted before you log off or you close the connection manually.

7 The Display tab lets you tweak settings such as the color depth, display size and some other visualization features. These options can help with performance when remotely connected. For example, you can disable the background, themes and menu and window animations and decrease the color depth in order to speed things up on the Remote Desktop Connection Client, especially since these extra flourishes aren t particularly essential for the types of tasks you ll likely be doing via Remote Desktop Connection. Disabling font smoothing may also make the text more readable, especially when the window is resized. The default Keyboard settings are designed to let your Mac keyboard access inputs such as rightclicks, the Windows start key and print screen. If you re using a different keyboard, you can remap the behavior in this window.

8 You can also change how Sound plays. You can choose to play the sound only on the Macintosh (client), only on the Windows-based computer (server) or on neither. In the Drives tab, you can choose which drives and folders you want to make available to the Windows-based host machine.

9 The drives you choose here will show up under tsclient in Windows Explorer. Here, you can read and write to and from your Macintosh s hard drive. Likewise, the Printers tab lets you make printers connected to your Mac available on the Windows host when you are connected via Remote Desktop Connection.

10 In the Security tab, you can change the authentication settings. Remote Desktop Connection tries to prevent you from connecting to a computer other than the one you intended by double-checking that the server name on the certificate matches the address or computer name that you entered. If it does not, authentication will fail. In this case, you can tell Remote Desktop Connection to connect anyway, to warn you before connecting or to cancel the connection. In most cases, the third option, Do not connect if authentication fails, is the most secure. But if you are entering your IP address rather than the computer name to connect, the server s name won t match what you entered to connect, thus causing authentication to fail, even though you are connecting to the machine you intended to. If you ll be using an IP address to connect, choose the second option Warn me if authentication fails or the first option Always connect, even if authentication fails. To save the settings you ve just made, click File, choose Save as and enter a filename for your.rdp file. Or, you can choose Save and the connection will be saved as default.rdp.

11 You can go back and change your preferences when the connection is open by clicking the Remote Desktop Connection menu and choosing Preferences. Note that if you make these changes with a connection open, you ll have to disconnect and reconnect before any of the changes take effect.