

Unless there is a specific reason, it is generally not advised to disable Remote Desktop on Windows 11. Both the local and remote computers must have an active internet connection for Remote Desktop to function, and you may need to adjust your firewall and network settings to permit connections. When you have successfully authenticated, you can access the remote computer’s desktop and operate it just like you were in front of it. It functions by turning on Remote Desktop on the computer you wish to connect to and then establishing a connection to it using the Remote Desktop client on a different computer. Windows Remote Desktop is a feature that allows users to access a computer remotely from a different location. Top Ways to Disable Remote Desktop on Windows PC.That’s it, remote desktop should now be ready to use!īy default Windows Server 2016 sets external remote desktop access to disabled as a security measure, we can easily optionally enable it from within the server console to everyone or a specific set of users or groups. After clicking the refresh button as highlighted below, the status should update to Enabled. Back in Server Manager, Remote Desktop may still show as Disabled until you refresh the view.Select the OK button to close out of the System Properties window and enable remote desktop. At this point you can optionally click the “Select Users…” button to define specific users or groups that have permission to connect via remote desktop.Once you select “Allow remote connections to this computer” the below warning message will appear, advising that this will create the required firewall rules in Windows firewall to allow remote desktop traffic in from any source address, select OK to proceed.

Tip: You can also open the System Properties window shown above by entering “SystemPropertiesRemote” into a Command Prompt or PowerShell terminal.

You may need to wait a little for it to detect the current state of your system. Within the Server Manager window, select Local Server from the left hand side.

By default Server Manager will open when you log in to the GUI, otherwise you can select it from the task bar. Remote desktop can be enabled through the graphical user interface (GUI) with the following easy steps. Note: In Windows Server 2016 Essentials edition, remote desktop is already enabled by default so you will not need to manually do this. Here we cover how to turn on and enable remote desktop protocol (RDP). By default in Windows Server 2016 remote desktop is disabled.
