Computing on Demand PC News & Reviews
4. Turn on Remote Desktop
Remote desktop may not be for everyone, but if everyone realized what it did then I bet more people would use it. There are plenty of times I am on my laptop upstairs and I need some information or to run a specific application from my desktop PC. The reasons may vary, but I can tell you that purchasing one license for an application and accessing it remotely (sometimes) is far less expensive than purchasing multiple licenses for multiple systems, example: Photoshop. Remote Desktop is integrated into Windows and is why it made the list.
- Open System by clicking the Start button, right-clicking Computer, and then clicking Properties.
- In the left pane, click Remote settings. Administrator permission required If you’re prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
- In the System Properties dialog box, under Remote Desktop, select one of the three options, and then click Select Users.
- If you are an administrator on the computer, your current user account will automatically be added to the list of remote users and you can skip the next two steps.
- In the Remote Desktop Users dialog box, click Add.
- In the Select Users or Groups dialog box, do the following:
- To specify the search location, click Locations, and then select the location you want to search.
- In Enter the object names to select, type the name of the user that you want to add, and then click OK.
5. Turn on or Tune ClearType. All my netbooks & notebooks are usable with my 24 inch portrait 1080 LED LCD TV. (Portrait is easier to read, scroll text; 24 inch is ok for YouTube in Portrait mode).
if you are using an external monitor, you need to recalibrate ClearType.
4. Turn on Remote Desktop: make sure your firewalls are up! Especially if you are WLAN or Internetting. Ms inbuilt firewall will not stop malware from sending out your stuff. So use any of the freeware firewalls; Zone Alarm is my recommendation.
3. Disable System Restore is unadvised. (Rickyf, Xantor earlier). The administrator has the option to determine the amount of Sys Restore on every (read-write) drive used. Ten % of a 1 or 2 TG drive is too much Sys Restore, so I have enough for at least a few restore points – 1 gig.
Worth noting that remote desktop is not available in Win7 HP – you can RDP to it, just not from it.
Trying typing mstsc from the "run" (Windows Key and R) command. That should do it.
Disabling system restore is definitely not for everyone. I've fixed a few of my friend's PC after a botched driver install. Thankfully, a system restore point was created prior to the installation.
Backup and Restore Center is a good but different alternative to System Restore. The advantage of System Restore is that usually points are created prior to various software/driver installations (which is usually where the problem starts) whereas Backups are periodic and might erase/replace more data than needed.
While instructions are great, I'd love some explanation for why you do or do not like these features.
Comment accepted and editing the article now.
I disagree with two of your recommendations.
1. "Disable System Restore" is not warranted on new systems with lots of storage. It is better to have the restore points than not if a failure occurs.
2. "Turn on Remote Desktop" should be enabled if the system will be remotely accessed, otherwise this is a security risk.
I agree with you partially, for some users.
With system restore, I find it simply takes up too much space and gives the users a false sense of security. My personal opinion is that an end user will benefit more from having decent backup software than system restore turned on. Windows 7 already comes with backup features and I feel as though these should be used instead.
Remote Desktop is a must. I use it endlessly and security is an issue without it. If your wireless / network is wide open, what does it matter if RDC is off or on anyway?