Remote Desktopy Approaches
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Discussion

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

16,599 posts

257 months

Thursday 7th April 2022
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I have a Windows PC that I work on, I don't have a Windows Laptop, but I do have a Samsung Galaxy TabS8 Ultra now, with its 15" screen I've started doing some work on it and it's great.

Most of what I'm doing is available either as an App on Android, or is online, so it's fine, but I have one bit of software that is Windows only and I'd like to be able to use it on my tablet. It's not an urgent thing, but it would be nice to get it working.

I have a server, but not the time to work out how to setup a Virtual Machine and then set it up so it can access my files in Sharepoint and so it can publish work back to the Cloud.

I have a Windows PC that's always on, so I could use Remote Desktop. I've used Chrome Remote Desktop before and it was a bit of a pain really as my desktop is 4 screens and I only want one and it doesn't really need to be the screen, just a single program.

I don't really know what I'm doing beyond having a vague idea of what the options are, so I thought I'd better ask!

What's the best way to get my single Windows program to work on my tablet, given the kit I have?

Yorkshire_Biker

583 posts

172 months

Thursday 7th April 2022
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Not sure if you've used TeamViewer in the past, it is available for free (for non business use of course). I've found access through my phone or surface laptop to my desktop works absolutely fine with this.
I do have a similar query though, what are peoples experience of Windows 11 Pro for remote access? It is now built in, but I'm not keen on paying for it if it is worse than TeamViewer, but is it any better?
I'll normally be accessing through a Surface so more functionality than an iPhone.

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

16,599 posts

257 months

Thursday 7th April 2022
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I tried to setup Microsoft's Remote desktop app to test that and got as far as enabling it on my Windows 11 PC, problem is it has added my windows account email as a user automatically, but it won't accept my windows password to let me in from the Android App! I can't see anywhere to set a password for the user or anything like that, so I'm a bit stuck now!

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

16,599 posts

257 months

Thursday 7th April 2022
quotequote all
Oooh, I fixed that because I'm really clever! Turns out if you use the PIN to access Windows for long enough it then confuses itself and decides it doesn't know if oyu know your password, so you need to log in with your password so it knows you know before it'll let you DRP in. Cool. Or not, that seems like a basic flaw!

Anyway, the first annoyance is that it locks my PC when I access it. Fair enough I suppose, but I guess what I really want is it to serve up an extra Desktop just for my remote device.

And apparently I should setup a VPN if I want to use it off the house network, so that may need more thought!

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

16,599 posts

257 months

Thursday 7th April 2022
quotequote all
Yeah, that's a bit hit and miss as a solution.

It did a pretty good job initially, basically put all my open apps onto a single desktop and resized it to my tablet resolution, then served it up in 4k perfectly.

Then it started just showing grey screens for various apps and now I've logged back into the PC it's taken 10 minutes to sort out the displays back how they were, it's not put the various programs back on the displays they were on and for that 10 minutes the PC was unusable. Now I can type again, but everything is running really slow as if it's still sorting stuff out and it really needs a reboot to fix whatever it's crashed.

This is not going to fly. What I need is an extra empty Desktop that's only got one display turned on and no apps opened. Ie just serve me up a new Windows Desktop rather than an existing one. Is there anything that wil do that?

I wonder if I can add another user, set that up with just the one screen, log them in and remote into that profile instead? I'll try that...

eeLee

1,009 posts

110 months

Thursday 7th April 2022
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If you're on the same network - VNC. Unlike RD Client, it will not lock the current session if you configure it to not do so.

Remote Utilities I rate higher than TV. Also look at Tailscale to avoid having to have a VPN for remote access......

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

16,599 posts

257 months

Thursday 7th April 2022
quotequote all
Thanks, I'll have a look at that.

I setup a new profile and that worked better, but had issues with the program I want to use when I registered my tablet. Looks like different profile can't have different display setups though, so it will mangled my normal desktop.