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You are here: Home / Tech / Scaling Remote Desktop To Specific Resolution (aka still show your taskbar)

Scaling Remote Desktop To Specific Resolution (aka still show your taskbar)

May 27, 2011 by Paul Spoerry 3 Comments

There’s no denying that Remote Desktop is one of the greatest features of Windows. It’s incredibly handy and it’s speed and performance beats VNC and many other remote control solutions in speed and picture quality.

One gripe I have had with Remote Desktop is that I want to be able to connect to my desktop machine (my work laptop) at a resolution which would allow it to be a full size window but NOT full screen. In other words, I want it full screen but still showing MY taskbar. It turns out scaling the window to fit without scrollbars isn’t that difficult; you just can’t do it from the GUI.

Here’s how to pull this off:

  • Configure your remote connection from the GUI as usual.
  • In “Local Resources, make sure that “Apply Windows key combinations” is set to “On the remote computer”.
  • Save the connections settings to a file. Call it for example “MyLaptopRDP.rdp”.
  • Open Notepad and edit the file you just created. Here’s a shortened version of what you’ll see:
screen mode id:i:1
desktopwidth:i:1280
desktopheight:i:800
session bpp:i:16
winposstr:s:0,3,0,0,800,600
compression:i:1
keyboardhook:i:1
  • Add a new line with this text: “smart sizing:i:1?
  • Change the desktop width and height to what you want (for example I set mine to the laptops 1600×900).
  • Save and quit Notepad. Double click on MyLaptopRDP.rdp (this part is important… you have to use the NEW RDP connection file to launch to get this to work) and now you’ll have an RDP session that fits on your screen but still shows you default machines taskbar. Super sweet!

Filed Under: Tech, Vista Tweaks, Windows, Windows 7 Tagged With: laptop, LinkedIn, rdp, resolution, Windows

About Paul Spoerry

I’m a groovy cat who’s into technology, Eastern Thought, and house music. I’m a proud and dedicated father to the coolest little guy on the planet (seriously, I'm NOT biased). I’m fascinated by ninjas, the Internet, and anybody who can balance objects on their nose for long periods of time.

I have a utility belt full of programming languages and a database of all my knowledge on databases... I practice code fu. Oh, I've also done actual Kung Fu, and have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

I run. I meditate. I dance. I blog at PaulSpoerry.com, tweet @PaulSpoerry, and I'm here on Google+.

I'm currently work for IBM developing web enabled insurance applications for IBM and support and develop a non-profit called The LittleBigFund.

Comments

  1. Cees Timmerman says

    December 13, 2011 at 2:53 am

    Thanks! I’ve been holding off on a cheap tablet due to their low resolution, as i think not all my games can go lower than 1024×768.

    PS: It’s his/hers/its.

  2. Narges says

    July 30, 2012 at 8:48 am

    Thanks! Saved my day 😀

  3. Troy says

    February 24, 2014 at 7:53 am

    I found that changing the ‘desktopwidth’, ‘desktopheight’, and last 2 values in ‘winposstr’ to be more beneficial. Then, nothing needs to be scaled. Thank you for the tip about saving the settings and editing them with notepad, though. Without that, I would have never gotten to my solution.

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