Windows – Can Windows 7 desktop connect via Remote Desktop with Windows 8 machine

If you have a NAT router, disabling the router firewall may not be enough. Did you set up a port forwarding rule?

To be able to connect to your laptop at home, you have to set up a port forwarding rule which forwards an external port of your choice to the internal port 3389 (remote desktop) of your laptop.

Let's say your external ip is 1.2.3.4 and the internal ip of your laptop is 192.168.0.20. You could then create the following forwarding rule:

1.2.3.4:55555 -> 192.168.0.20:3389

This would forward external port 55555 to the remote desktop port of your laptop.

If you correctly disabled the firewalls on your router and laptop, you should be able to get a remote desktop connection from work using 1.2.3.4:55555.

The Windows Key is not on the list of supported RDP shortcuts therefore its hit and miss if it will work or if you will experience strange behaviors.

The only listed supported shortcuts are as below:

ALT+PAGE UP Switches between programs from left to right.

ALT+PAGE DOWN Switches between programs for right to left.

ALT+INSERT Cycles through the programs in the order they were started.

ALT+HOME Displays the Start menu.

CTRL+ALT+BREAK Switches the client between full-screen mode and window mode.

CTRL+ALT+END Brings up the Windows Security dialog box.

ALT+DELETE Displays the Windows menu.

CTRL+ALT+MINUS SIGN (-) Places a snapshot of the active window, within the client, on the Remote Desktop Session Host (RD Session Host) server clipboard (provides the same functionality as pressing ALT+PRINT SCREEN on the local computer).

CTRL+ALT+PLUS SIGN (+) Places a snapshot of the entire client windows area on the RD Session Host server clipboard (provides the same functionality as pressing PRINT SCREEN on the local computer).