With the Remote Desktop app from the Windows Phone Store, you can use your phone to connect to your PC (the remote PC). For example, if you’re away from your office and want to quickly look up a document, you can connect to your work PC and use all of your apps, files, and network resources as if you were sitting at the keyboard.
These instructions are for setting up a Windows 8.1 PC. If you need to set up a Windows 7 or Windows Vista PC, see Connect to another computer using Remote Desktop Connection. Use the drop down menu next to the title to see a different version.
- Go to the remote PC.
- Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Search (or if you're using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, and then click Search), enter allow remote in the search box, and then tap or click Allow remote access to your computer. You might be asked for an admin password or to confirm your choice.
- In the System Properties dialog box, under Remote Desktop, make sure the Allow remote connections to this computer button is selected. For more info about these options, see the "What types of Remote Desktop connections should I allow?" question in this topic.
- Tap or click Select Users, and in the Remote Desktop Users dialog box, tap or click Add.
- In the Select Users or Groups dialog box, do the following:
- To choose the search location, tap or click Locations, and then select the location you want to search.
- In Enter the object names to select, enter the name or user name of the person that you want to add, and then tap or click OK. The name will be added to the list of people who can connect to this PC.
- Make sure you know this PC’s full name. You’ll need to enter it in the Remote Desktop app when you want to connect to this PC remotely. To find your PC's full name:
- Open System by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, tapping Search (or if you're using a mouse, pointing to the upper-right corner of the screen, moving the mouse pointer down, and then clicking Search), entering System in the search box, and tapping or clicking System.
- Look under Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings to see the full PC name.
- Turn off sleep and hibernation on the remote PC. You'll need to make sure the settings for sleep and hibernation are set to Never, since you can't connect to a PC that's asleep or hibernating.
You can only allow remote connections to PCs running certain Windows operating systems. For more info, see "List of Windows versions you can connect to" in this topic.
From the Remote Desktop app for Windows Phone, you can only connect to PCs that are running these Windows operating systems:
- Windows 8.1 Pro
- Windows 8.1 Enterprise
- Windows 8 Enterprise
- Windows 8 Pro
- Windows 7 Professional
- Windows 7 Enterprise
- Windows 7 Ultimate
- Windows Vista Business
- Windows Vista Ultimate
- Windows Vista Enterprise
- On Start, open Remote Desktop.
- In Desktops, tap and hold a remote PC and then tap Edit.
- Go to Advanced.
- Change settings as needed:
- In Sounds, select Play on this device, Play on remote PC, or Don’t play sounds.
- Select or clear Swap mouse buttons. Select this when the mouse on the remote PC has swapped mouse buttons.
- Select or clear Connect to admin session. This allows you to connect a session to the server instead of a user session.
- Tap Save.
The mouse modes available in this app are defined in the table. To switch into mouse mode, tap the connection bar at the top of the screen, and then tap Mouse pointer.
| Mouse mode | Mouse operation | Gesture |
|---|---|---|
| Direct touch | Move pointer | Your finger is the pointer |
| Direct touch | Left-click | 1 finger tap |
| Direct touch | Left-click and drag | 1 finger tap and drag |
| Direct touch | Right-click | 1 finger tap and hold |
| Direct touch | Right-click and drag | 1 finger tap and hold, then drag |
| Direct touch | Zoom | Use the buttons on the connection bar to zoom in and out |
| Mouse pointer | Move pointer | 1 finger tap and drag |
| Mouse pointer | Left-click | 1 finger tap |
| Mouse pointer | Left-click and drag | 1 finger double tap and hold, then drag |
| Mouse pointer | Right-click | 2 finger tap |
| Mouse pointer | Right-click and drag | 2 finger tap and hold, then drag |
| Mouse pointer | Mouse wheel | 2 finger tap and hold, then drag up and down |
| Mouse pointer | Zoom | Use two fingers and pinch to zoom out or move fingers away from each other to zoom in |
When the remote PC is Windows 8 or newer, the native touch gestures are supported in multi-touch mode.
If you're using an accessibility option like Magnifier in Ease of Access, some gestures in mouse pointer mode might not work as expected.
You can save your credentials so that you don't have to reenter them each time you sign in to a remote PC, but there's a risk. If your phone is ever lost or stolen, someone else might be able to access the remote PC and its data. For that reason, we strongly recommend you use a password on your phone if you choose to save your credentials. You should also delete any credentials saved in the app's settings if you don't need them to be available on the phone anymore.