Thursday 13 January 2011

Creating shortcuts to Remote Desktop to a specific machine

I like using Launchy to open and close applications. This includes opening Remote Desktop but it’s nice to be able to jump straight to a Remote Desktop session on a particular machine by simply typing the machine name into Launchy.

The way I do this is:

  1. Create a folder under C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Start Menu\Programs\ called Shortcuts.
  2. Add this folder to the Launch catalog using the Launchy options dialog.
  3. Create a new shortcut in the new folder.
  4. For the ‘Location of the item’ type %windir%\system32\MSTSC.EXE /v:MACHINE_NAME where MACHINE_NAME is replaced with the name of the machine you want to Remote Desktop to.
  5. For the name of the shortcut use the machine name.
  6. Save the shortcut and get Launchy to rescan its catalog.

 

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Now, by tying the machine name into Launchy you can immediately open a Remote Desktop session to the machine.

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