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XP remote desktop into Vista

I can't for the life of me work out to enable remote desktop in Vista so that it works from XP (that is connecting to the Vista box from XP). The option to disable remote desktop from Vista only is greyed out. Any clues?

Comments

jp said:

there are three places that controls remote desktop connection.

1) Control Panel > System > Remote Settings
2) Control Panel > Windows Firewall > Exceptions
3) Control Panel > Network Connections > right click your network card > Configure > Share > Settings
# March 3, 2006 1:31 PM

bob_chauvin said:

I have yet to get this working too!
# May 23, 2006 10:59 PM

bob_chauvin said:

#3 Did it for me.  Thanks jp.
# May 25, 2006 4:58 AM

Wraith Daquell said:

So, what needs to be changed to set it up?
# June 22, 2006 2:35 PM

JM said:

All you need to check is the second option (in 5536 that is) to allow any RD viewer and either make an exception in the firewall or disable it.

Worked fine after those two tweaks, thanks for the info :)

# August 29, 2006 7:56 AM

chad said:

Mine was working - no new changes... and then it crapped out! No idea what the deal is!

# October 31, 2006 3:22 PM

jer said:

I can't RDP into Vista from XP machine.

Vista is on domain. XP on home network. Both attached to same router. IP address isn't recognized.

Aaargh.

# November 30, 2006 1:00 AM

obsydian said:

Here's what fixed it for me:

Network > right click on the Router > Properties > Settings

I had to add a service, with the ip of the host computer and the ports.

# November 30, 2006 4:29 PM

mrr said:

#1, namely Control Panel > System > Remote Settings, did it for me in Vista Business.  After changing the settings there, I was able to connect to Vista from Windows 2000 Server using RDC without any other changes.

My Vista is a pretty vanilla install (released version, not RC).

# December 13, 2006 6:26 PM

Wes said:

obsydian suggestion worked for me..  Thanks

# January 4, 2007 1:00 PM

Capricorn said:

I hope you didnt forget to open a port in your router?

forward 3389 to the internal IP of your pc that is accepting remote actions.

And disable useraccount managaer (gebruikersaccountbeheerder). You can locate it in configuration\useraccount

# January 23, 2007 1:42 PM

hempi said:

how do you ... or is it possible to enable Remote Desktop "Web" Connection the way you can with XP?

Remote Desktop Connection with Vista works fine, i can connect to it with my XP PC's but i can not figure out how to enable the WEB portion on Vista.

I have IIS up and functioning on Vista and am connecting to it with a web browser from XP.

# January 27, 2007 3:07 PM

SAK said:

I Am having some trobble compunicating with a vista unit from an XP unit in america to England The Vista Unit is on a router With A 4 Unit network and wifi. But how do i sect the vista PC on this network. in know the IP and the Subnet IP.  

# February 9, 2007 12:06 PM

Tiago said:

you need to redirect the router incoming connections to the vista machine on the RDC port. usually that's port TCP 3389.

After that when u access the router outside ip on port 3389 it should redirect u to the vista machine.

# February 12, 2007 7:18 AM

dan.peek said:

I'm getting frustrated. I have Vista Home Premium. I have McAfee and Windows firewall both turned off. I can remote Vista to XP pro SP2, I can see shared files and folders on the Vista machine from XP, but I can't remote desktop from XP into Vista.

# February 12, 2007 6:01 PM

Michael said:

dan.peek- vista home premium doesn't act as a remote desktop host, which means that you can't connect to it from any other computer using the built-in utility. only vista business, enterprise, and ultimate support "incoming" remote desktop. there are other programs available, however. i recommend VNC (realvnc.com). you just need to install the free edition on your vista pc and the free edition viewer on any pc you want to use to connect to it.

# February 12, 2007 7:04 PM

coditza said:

@jp: thanks, that did the trick.

@Tiago: that's not exactly a wise idea. An attacker, one that's clever enough to document itself, knows that the 3389 port is used for RDC. Then, he can use an exploit to compromise that computer. Right now there aren't any exploits for RDC for Vista, but that can change in the future.

There are 2 possible solutions:

1) forward another port, 10000 for example, that will look to the casual attacker as a port used by some torrent client.

2) if your router is an Unix based router, this is my case: I have opened only the port 22, for ssh connections, log in with putty to the router from outside my network and set up putty to make a tunnel that will forward, let's say, port 1234 from my work pc, to 3389 of my workstation from home. Then, I connect to 127.0.0.1:1234 with the RDC client and the whole communication is done through a secure tunnel.

# February 14, 2007 4:29 PM

Robbie said:

After trying many things to get RDC to work as a host on Vista Premium, I searched through windows help on "remote desktop" and this is what I found:

You cannot use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to computers running Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Basic N, or Windows Vista Home Premium, and you can only create outgoing connections from those editions of Windows Vista.

I should have read Michael's posting a few hours ago.

I have to say that I am very disappointed (although not surprised) that Microsoft decided to leave this feature out of their "Premium" version of Vista.

# February 14, 2007 4:46 PM

coditza said:

@Robbie: well, you can't join an AD with XP Home, can you? :) The fact is that 90% of the home users (eg, the ones that could use Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Basic N, or Windows Vista Home Premium don't need very advanced network utilities. That's why (prolly) the price is lower for these versions. The only solution for these versions is to run a vnc server. Which isn't a very good idea because for each refresh, the vnc server will send to the client a full bitmap with everything on the screen. RDC sends objects afaik, and can optimize that.

# February 15, 2007 6:16 AM

chrisemo said:

I can RD from Vista Ultimate to XP Pro, but after I do, things go bad in XP (can't boot to the desktop).  This has happened twice now.  First time, I was able to rename the usrclass.dat file and boot to the desktop, but the second time I RD'd to XP from Vista, renaming usrclass.dat and various other attempts at recovery failed, short of having to recover from a Ghost image.

# February 20, 2007 2:22 PM

R_JAMES said:

With XP Pro on box 1 = Remote access works fine

With Vista release box 1 = Remote only works on LAN not from WAN

All 3 settings for RD are set too allow, I have turned off all firewall software to no avail

# February 21, 2007 10:58 PM

fotd said:

You have to be using rdp 6.0 to rdp to vista http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925876.  Even with it installed I still had issues on my xpsp2 box.  The default setting for rdp on vista is to use NLA (network level authentication), for some reason my xpsp2 box can't use it even though the service is running.  To check if it's running right mouse click on the upper left hand corner of your rdp client and hit about.  You should see a line NLA supported/not supported.  If it's not supported go back to your vista system, goto adv. system settings\remote, set the middle option allow any rdp client to connect (less secure). This should take care of those having issues.

# February 26, 2007 6:59 PM

fotd said:

R_James what level of authentication are you using on your wlan?  I'm using wep64 and NLA won't work.  See my note above on how to turn off NLA.

# February 26, 2007 7:16 PM

semaj said:

RDC is really weird in Vista or may be it's me. I am able to RDC within my home network, but when I try to connect using internet it's not working. I have forwarded the incoming connection to port 3389 and selected "allow connections from any computer...(less secure)". I've tried every thing as JP (first comment).

Any idea would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

# February 27, 2007 11:00 PM

tman said:

has anyone been able to remote desktop the other way? remote desktop an xp machine from vista?

# March 12, 2007 8:51 PM

Cathy said:

Could someone please tell me if my home machine (using Vista Home Premium) will be able to RDC with my desktop at work (using XP Office) through a VPN connection.  I've read somewhere that home premium will allow client-access only and not host.  So in that case, shouldn't I be able to make this connection work?

# March 13, 2007 2:49 PM

Kerry said:

I am not able to create an ssh tunnel to vista in the past with xp I could log into remote desktop ushing ssh...any ideas?

# March 15, 2007 12:00 PM

Tony said:

This is bizarre. I am trying to RD to a Vista Home Premium machine using XP Pro. The vista machine RD dialogue is happy to send my XP machine an invite by email but reading this posts it seems to be that the RD won't be possible. When I use the invite, I find I can't connect and when I try the suggestions at the top I find I don't have Share settings as advised by the first poster.

Can this be right?

# March 16, 2007 8:18 AM

ILMV said:

Just to let you know Windows Vista Home Premium will NOT allow incoming remote desktop connections, however Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate will.

I know this as I am writing an article on how to use remote desktop over the internet :D

# April 8, 2007 6:07 PM

marc said:

WEAK!  Not allowing RD for home versions is a big mistake.  Im removing my Vista install and going back to XP...

# April 11, 2007 12:22 PM

Omar said:

I really think its idiotic that MS doesn't let Vista premium support RDP. There are many home users who might like to connect to their home pc's while away from home and aren't running Vista Business. What a terrible decision. Its one of the reasons I'm not upgrading to Vista until I have to.

# April 12, 2007 5:19 PM

Marc said:

Cathy...  I know exactly what you are talking about.  You're right, you are the client, not the host. but if you are connecting through a VPN, i believe that it is still trying to connect TO your computer on port 3389.  even though your end goal is to RDP to your work computer.  I'm still trying to figure out a way around this because a co-worker of mine is having this same issue.  If anyone else has figured this out, or even knows what i'm talking about :)  let us know.

# April 28, 2007 12:39 AM

Steve said:

Microsoft should release an update to allow home Premium to include RD support.

# April 28, 2007 1:31 AM

jamie said:

Found a hack to allow RDP into vista home premium.  I can connect from the vista machine to another user session on the same vista machine, but haven't been able to connect from an XP machine.  I followed the links above and got the rdp6 version, but it won't support NLA on the xp machine, so I'm assuming from documetation I've read that i have to drop the nla on the vista machine.  However I don't have the settings available in the remote section, i guess as this is a hacked termserv dll.  I've found a registry item that supposedly means rdp only accepts from vista, when set to 1, but mine is set to 0, so I don't know what that means.  I'd almost think it means nla is off, but i still can't connect from xp.  just says there was a problem connecting, please contact your administrator... any ideas?

# May 2, 2007 10:33 PM

pustefix said:

I am using the RDP hack for Vista Home Premium and is having problem connecting from XP even with rdp6.  After searching around, I add the port 3389 in the firewall exception list and it is now working fine.

# May 3, 2007 9:57 AM

jamie said:

turned out, for some reason it won't work if i use the pc name, but if i use the ip address I was able to connect fine.  now to figure out if i can get ssh working on vista...

# May 3, 2007 9:05 PM

EC said:

I am trying to remote from XP to Vista Ultimate. It looks like it is going through and then I get a Remote Desktop Connection Error saying the remote computer ended the connection. I did everything explained above and still can't figure this out. Very frustrating.. Anyone have any suggestions please?

# May 25, 2007 7:01 PM

Gary said:

I too am using the hacked termserv.dll on a vista Home Premium machine.  Works perfectly for the administartors.  However, I'm trying to allow it for other users too.  Does anyone know how?

I've tried creating a user group called "Remote Desktop Users" using the net localgroup CMD and assigning that group to my users (the kids) but RDP still says that a "the connection is denied because the user is not authorized".

# June 7, 2007 4:15 PM

Buster said:

Just so you guys know, one of the reasons Home, Home Premium, Diet Home and Home ZERO SUGAR are cheaper is because they don't include things like remote desktop, so don't hold your breath for an update that solves that.

# June 8, 2007 3:58 PM

raymond said:

i have vista and xp on dual boot machine and i RDP all the time on the xp side of it but i fix the static ip for the vista machine because i use dsl and ip changes all the time. i have one user and thats the admin but when i connect to it i get the log in screen with user name and password but it saids the password is wrong for that user. i did not add the port of 3389 in vista yet because i have the log in screen and didnt see why i have to do that uac is off . i am running ult ver of vista. so i am now stuck at the log side of it. will post later if i fix it. that about it.

# June 10, 2007 9:43 AM

Ron said:

Try follwing when connecting from e.g. XP to Vista Home Premium:

Guide: How to Enable Concurrent Sessions in Vista  

By Alan Cooke | Published Friday, 16 February 2007  

look at www.missingremote.com/index.php

Hope this will work for any of you.

# June 13, 2007 2:23 PM

Johns said:

Work well. Just follow the first instruction.

Enable three things on the list.

Thx!

# July 1, 2007 6:34 PM

Ellis said:

When I use Visa RD to connect Terminal server, it always said wrong ID or Password, but when I use XP RD to connect TS is fine. What happens??

# August 23, 2007 1:53 PM

h said:

what i dont get any of this

# September 6, 2007 1:03 PM

Russ said:

I am trying to RDT from an XP Pro machine at work to a Vista Ultimate machine at home. I am connected to the internet via a free wireless internet service provided by the city. I created an account at No-IP.com and set it up for my home connection. I also enabled the setting for remote desktop at home. I got back here and found that I can't connect. I tried pinging the IP address and address from No-IP.com and it's not seeing it. Any ideas on what I may have missed? BTW, no home network or router. I am just trying to connect through the City's wireless provider. Thank you for any advice and assistance.

# September 19, 2007 1:27 PM

John said:

I found this URL helpful:

articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10877-6166676.html

After I did the first step (see figure C), I was able to remote in.  I already had the other settings mentioned above set up.  Be careful following all steps here.  I hear there are problems with browsing some SLL pages if you enable FIPS (figures F & G).

Cheers!

J

# October 10, 2007 3:19 AM

Shuzbud said:

Check the settings under computer/remote

Make sure you enable incoming RDP sessions from sources other than the ones that do network authentication and you should be set. XP RDP will use local authentication rather than network.

Hope that helps.

# October 13, 2007 4:35 PM

JJ said:

Hi everyone. Please could you clarify something for me, i'm a bit confused....

I have a computer at home running XP Professional.

I would like to remote access the computer via my Laptop (which is running Windows Vista Premium)...

To have the desktop of the XP Pro Computer at home on the Laptop (Premium Vista)...

Is this possible please!!!

# October 25, 2007 8:37 AM

Raphaël said:

Hi guys..

This is very weird... I can't connect to my Vista Ultimate from any XP (pro) box here anymore.

A few weeks ago I RDed from a friend of mine to my Vista box to show him something, worked just fine. But now I can't connect to the Vista box anymore..

Really weird.

RDC is enabled to except all connections and opened up in firewall (windows firewall since I'm doing this in my home network, router is out of the picture).

Any ideas how I could fix this?

Thanks in advance.

# November 11, 2007 7:03 PM

Bec Bell said:

JJ said:  

Hi everyone. Please could you clarify something for me, i'm a bit confused....

I have a computer at home running XP Professional.

I would like to remote access the computer via my Laptop (which is running Windows Vista Premium)...

JJ - did you get an answer??

# December 3, 2007 8:32 PM

DJ said:

JJ said:  

Hi everyone. Please could you clarify something for me, i'm a bit confused....

I have a computer at home running XP Professional.

I would like to remote access the computer via my Laptop (which is running Windows Vista Premium)...

And Bec Bell said: Did you get an answer??

I have the problem as JJ. Can anyone help?  Thx, DJ

# December 23, 2007 12:52 AM

kate said:

I had the same problem. I would like to remote desktop from vista premium home into xp. please tell us how...

thanks

# December 27, 2007 3:51 PM

Alex said:

I have disabled UAC after it was working, I suspect that stopped some authentication parts of it too.. hence why it's not working anymore.

I'll try and re-enable it after I go home today see if it works.

# January 3, 2008 6:01 AM

savan said:

Guys,

I have problem to connect Vista home premium to Xp sp2 pc. Is this possible? It seems from above posts you can do it.

We have Firepass VPN service by college.

My college pc is Xp and my laptop Vista.  Xp to Xp rdp was working but i couldn't connect from Vista to xp using rdp.

Can you please suggest me how to do this?

thanks

# February 10, 2008 5:15 PM

Kenyell said:

Savan,

You can't RDC using Vista Home Edition. It doesn't have that option on that version.

Sorry.

# February 25, 2008 6:36 PM

Justin B said:

If you need to remote a vista PC (any version) remotely (not in the same site) and securely, then simply use the www.logmein.com free version.  This creates a secure connection from the machine to control to logmein servers, you then logon to their web interface and choose the PC/Server to control and it opens it in your browser.

It's not lightning fast but perfectly good for remote control, browsing, configuration etc.  It's got very good encryption, works over HTTP so will go via routers already and can be accessed via work proxies too.

# February 26, 2008 9:30 AM

DJ said:

Kate,

We did get my Vista laptop to connect successfully to my XP desktop.  To do so, on the desktop we simply needed to install a newer version of Remote Desktop.  We got it here:

www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

# March 12, 2008 6:52 PM

Mike said:

You can RDP from XP by using the IP:port number, i.e., 10.224.1.100:3391; If you have more than one computer on a network you will need to use port forwarding within your router so it will know what IP and port to access on a particualr computer...of course you will need to enable the remote connection options mentioned earlier.

# April 3, 2008 9:20 AM

Mike said:

Mike,

I tried to use rdc 6 running on my xp box and still cannot connect to vista home premium, even with the ip address and port number specified. Can you please tell me which remote connection options need to be enabled to make this work?

# May 8, 2008 12:35 AM

Chris said:

I can't believe Microsoft's decision to leave out RDC for some versions. That is ridiculous!

# July 3, 2008 9:56 PM

Tom said:

@Chad:  The problem is that you're running Windows Vista

# July 31, 2008 11:28 PM

ian said:

You guys should know:

You cannot use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to computers running Windows Vista Starter, Home Basic, Home Basic N, or Home Premium. In addition you also cannot connect to XP Home Edition.

You can connect from the above editions to other editions, but not to those same editions.

# August 10, 2008 2:17 AM

Paul Damaa said:

Microsoft have in beta a free product called Windows Live Mesh, www.mesh.com

It has a number of benefits, including abilty to remote desktop in your Vista Basic machines.

Hope that helps.

www.damaa.co.uk/.../at-last-windows-vista-home-basic-remote.html

# August 11, 2008 3:03 PM

zdragon said:

I'm using SSH to tunnel and then XP RDP (version 6.0) to connect to Vista Ultimate. I get as far as the remote desktop window appearing to open with the word Welcome in the middle of the screen and Windows Vista Ultimate at the bottom of the screen but I'm not asked for my user credentials (I was asked for those upon initiating the RDP connection). Then, after about two minutes, I'm kicked out. What am I missing?

# December 24, 2008 3:04 PM

dulait said:

You can try using both Hamachi and UltraVNC.  This setup works for me - my XP Pro SP2 machine can remote to the Vista Home Premium machine.

# January 7, 2009 12:43 AM

frog said:

I have been able to remote from xp pro to vista pro and I can get a connection from vista pro to xp pro - it brings up the desktop but drops the connection and about 1 minute - I have heard that Vista Pro has a more robust Remote Desktop but it is not real compatible with XP - I really need to connect to the XP machine from Vista - My XP will connect VPN to work (it is a desktop) - I am having surgery so I need my Vista Laptop to be able to connect to the XP machine so I can work on another floor in the house - back surgery and can't go up stairs for 1 to 2 weeks - my desktop is upstairs - My DNS is WiFi (clearwire) and not sure it that figures in the difficulty - any clues

# January 7, 2009 10:16 AM

Windows7 Ultimate said:

You willb e happy to know your tips get the trick done between xp and windows 7

# January 12, 2009 6:09 PM

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# June 6, 2009 12:14 AM

michael said:

to connect remote dektop from XP to Vista u can try using Live Mesh (www.mesh.com) It works for me and no need to tweak anything.

# June 30, 2009 10:48 AM

tom said:

"insert a linux installation cd and reboot"

# September 8, 2009 10:41 AM

zinc said:

argh.. i can't understand how to remote.. i am planning to remote a pc that is connected from a network from my home.. the host is already shared as said above.. but whenever i run the "mstc" at the client side and enter the comp name i always prompted that it is not reachable..

if you have a suggestion please e-mail me at suoh_1988@yahoo.com

# October 23, 2009 6:42 AM

Paul said:

I am somewhat knowledgeable in working with computers but am losing my freaking mind with this issue. Im running windows xp sp3 and i desperately need to remotely access my mothers Toshiba satellite laptop running vista home premium.

Is there anyway someone could give a step by step tutorial for dummies so i can actually accomplish this? My parents recently moved about 9 hours away and it is impossible to walk my mother through things over the phone.

Please, please, please heeeeeeeelp!

# October 28, 2009 8:58 PM

haber said:

so stupid no-one did not see the user :)))

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guetlers said:

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I Googled the web and discovered the following:

Kaseya.com

GFI.com

Logmein.com

They all look different... Does anyone has a priority?

By the way had somebody hear of that software:

<a href="n-able.com/">N-able remote desktop software</a> ?

# March 17, 2010 10:36 AM

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I Googled the web and discovered the following:

Kaseya.com

GFI.com

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