This tutorial will guide you in enabling Remote Desktop in Vista, and then connecting to Vista from your Mac. Using Remote Desktop you can completely control your Vista PC, from your Mac.
- In Vista, open your Control Panel and select System and Maintenance.
- Now select System
- From the panel on the left, click Remote settings.
- The System Properties window should open, with the Remote tab displayed.
- Place a check in the box labeled Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure). Unless you’ve set Vista to “never sleep” in the Power Options, you’ll get a little pop-up telling you that when your Vista PC is asleep, users can’t connect to it. Click OK.
- If you have several people using your PC and each has their own profile, and you want to only allow some of them to remotely access Vista, click the Select Users button. Note that anyone with administrative privileges will be able to connect.
- Select the user(s) you want to allow access and click the Add… button. Note: in the screenshot below there are no users, as my Vista PC only has one user. Click OK.
- Back at the Remote tab of the System Properties window click Apply and then OK.
Now return to the Control Panel and in the Security section, click Allow a program through Windows Firewall.
- Make sure that the box labeled Remote Desktop has a check.
If you’re using a Firewall other than the one built in to Windows Vista, you’ll need to manually allow connections on port 3389 using UDP.
- Now that you’ve finished setting up Remote Desktop in Vista, you’ll need to download a Remote Desktop client for OS X. Head over to http://cord.sourceforge.net and download CoRD v0.5 Beta 1 (or later). Earlier versions of CoRD will not work with Vista. Installing CoRD is as easy as you’d expect – just drag the program to your Applications folder. Launch it from there.
- If the Servers panel isn’t displayed (it should be by default) click the Servers button from the top toolbar. Then click the plus sign (+) button in the bottom right corner of the Servers side panel.
- Enter the IP address your Vista PC is using. If you’re connecting over a local network, enter the IP address assigned by your router/gateway. If you’re connecting across the Internet, and your Vista PC is behind a router, make sure to forward UDP on port 3389 to Vista.
Then enter the user name and password you use to sign in to Vista. Place a check in
Save password if you don’t want to enter it each time. Review the other options and make changes as you see fit (the defaults are good to start with). Close the New Server window when you’re done. - Double-click the new entry in your Servers list.
- And you’ll connect to your Vista PC. From here you can control Vista as if you were sitting in from of it.
click to enlarge
the info does not clarify/explain whether the vista remcon is NOT using a standard vnc based protocol, like osx does …
is it necessary to download CORD because vista remcon is a proprietary?!
I need the opposite. I’ve got a samsung printer connected via usb to an IMac (leopard).
On the mac networking is already open, but I cannot find out the periferal in vista. I must say I’m not that cute in windowa world. Thanks
i want to connect windows vista to windows XP using Remote Desktop Connection.
i have done all the above mentioned setting.
firewall is off.
i am able to ping the vista machine.
i am able to connect to vista using VNC.
but not able to connect using remote desktop connection
Please help me its urgent
When I get to step 4- I only have the “Remote Assistance” section under the Remote tab. I don’t have those 3 radio buttons to choose from under the “Remote Desktop” section.
I have Vista Home Premium and Mac OS X 10.5.5 with RDC 2.0.
Do you need a higher version of Vista for these features to work??
Matt -
You need Business or Ultimate, Home Premium doesn’t have Remote Desktop. Alternatively, try this -
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/permalink/210408/244477/ShowThread.aspx#244477
Unzip file, open a terminal window with Admin rights, and run the file called Premium.bat. Watch the output and make sure everything’s working.
I have Home Premium and also use RDC2 to connect from a Mac running 10.5, works fine.
Hello, I am trying to allow a friend of mine (a Mac user) to access my Windows Vista Ultimate PC. We downloaded CoRD v0.5 Beta 1 on her Mac, and I setup my computer as you specified. Since she is accessing my computer over the Internet, we were trying to follow step 13 when we got stuck. What is meant by “If you’re connecting across the Internet, and your Vista PC is behind a router, make sure to forward UDP on port 3389 to Vista?” How do I forward UDP on port 3389 to Vista on her computer? Where is port 3389? By “behind a rounter,” do you mean the router has a Subnet Mask ID? Thanks in advance.
I would also like to know the answer to the question regarding UDP
Ross,
Nice article, very helpful, did the trick immediately, only had to go back and make sure I got the BETA of CORD, missed that the first run through.
Ross
Bonjour
j’ai une version de vista ou il n’y a pas de d’onglet “Remote” ??
comment faire pour le configurer ??
ou es t’il caché
et donc je ne peux pas prendre la main sur ce PC.
CDLT
Times out every time. Any ideas?
very useful to RDC from my macbook pro to my Windows 7 PC. thank you for the suggestion to use CoRD. I was fixin’ to use Microsofts RDC for Mac but it wouldn’t connect. I DLed CoRD and it worked like magic. Very simple article. thanks.
@ Tmi
@ Bill
You connect to a machine from over the internet meaning from outside your network, such as from work or a friends house. This is obviously different than connecting to machine which are on your own network at home or whatever. Do connect this way, you need to forward the port in your router by accessing your router config and manually assiging the port to forward. Every good router has a port forwarding section. Then when you want to connect to Windows from another network, you type in IPADDRESSOFWINDOWSMACHINE:port (or something like that).