The Remote Desktop Web Connection provides a simple way to connect to your Windows XP Professional remote desktop, even when you don't have the Remote Desktop client software installed on the computer you're currently using (called the client computer). Before you can use the Remote Desktop Web Connection from home or the road, you need to set up Remote Desktop on the remote computer. See column Tuning Remote Desktop for instructions.

Installing Remote Desktop Web Connection
Remote Desktop Web Connection isn't installed by default in Windows XP Professional, so you'll need to add it yourself to the remote computer. And to add it, you'll also need to enable Internet Information Services (IIS) on your remote desktop. To install the Remote Desktop Web Connection component and enable IIS on your machine, grab your Windows XP Professional CD, and then follow these steps:

1. Open Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel.
2. Click Add/Remove Windows Components to bring up the list of Windows Components.
3. Select Internet Information Services, and then click the Details button.
4. Select World Wide Web Services, and then click the Details button to open the World Wide Web Service dialog box shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Open the World Wide Web Service dialog box


5. Select the Remote Desktop Web Connection check box, click OK, and follow the wizard's instructions. You'll be prompted to insert your original CD, so have it handy.

Connecting to the Remote Desktop
After the installation is complete, you can connect to your Windows XP Professional host machine using any computer that is running Internet Explorer 4.0 or later. You don't need to have the Remote Desktop client software on the computer that is doing the connecting. To connect:

1.Open Internet Explorer, and in the Address field, type: http://machinename/tsweb where machinename is the WINS or DNS resolved machine name for your Windows XP Professional-based computer. You'll see a Web page like the one shown in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Web page


2. You can use this page to connect to your Windows XP Professional-based workstation, or any other computers on your network that have Remote Desktop installed. Yup. You can use your own Windows XP computer to act as a gateway to other computers on the network that are running Terminal Services (the underlying protocol for Remote Desktop), even though they aren't themselves running the Remote Desktop Web Connection. Figure 3 shows an example, logging on to a Windows 2000 Advanced Server using a Remote Desktop Web Connection.

3. If you want to include logon information in the original connection to your Remote Desktop server, select the Send logon information for this connection check box and two new fields open on the form, allowing you to enter your user name and domain name.



Enter your user name and password at the Windows logon prompt, as shown in Figure 3, and then click OK. You'll see your desktop, complete with any windows that were left open the last time you used the computer.

Figure 3: Windows logon prompt