Did a round of Microsoft Updates break Remote Desktop for you? It did for me… last patch Tuesday happened and suddenly I couldn’t remote into my work machine. RDP was down for the count and it took a while to discover why exactly this was happening. [Read more…]
GitHub releases a new branch for Windows
GitHub branch… Get it?! A branch for Windows? Ok well it’s early… Ever wish there was an easy way to get up and running with Git and GitHub on your Windows computer? Turned off by command line utilities and setting up SSH keys? Want to join the incredible world of open and closed source collaboration that happens on GitHub.com every day? Guess what… GitHub just released a Windows client.
Google Drive, SkyDrive, DropBox, etc Price Comparison (Charts)
Google Drive, SkyDrive, Dropbox, SugarSync, Box, etc. The consumer online storage space is roaring ahead, which is of course good for consumers, but which one is the best? [Read more…]
How to get Spaces and Expose on Windows
I’ve been a heavy Windows user my entire life. Sure, I’ve played with Linux but since as a profession I develop with Microsoft technologies I’ve always been tethered to the Windows world. I’ve been fortunate that something that was a hobby turned into something I could get paid to do. However, having your hobby as a job takes the hobby out of it!
Scaling Remote Desktop To Specific Resolution (aka still show your taskbar)
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!