Windows – Navigating nested RDP sessions

remote desktopwindows

Often at work I have to RDP into one server in order to get to another. And no, there's no chance of the network getting sorted out such that I can connect to all machines directly 🙂

I'm wondering if anyone has any good tips/tricks for working in this scenario. I tend to open RDP sessions full screen, so the way to get back to my desktop is to click the minimize or restore buttons on the toolbar the drops down from the top of the screen when you are using a full-screen RDP session. The problem is that when you log into A and then from there log into B, A's toolbar covers B's, so there's no easy way to get back to the desktop of A without logging out of B. At least as far as I can see. Maybe there's a keyboard shortcut that can pop you out of the innermost session?

At the moment, I try to not use full screen mode on the nested session, but apart from having to remember to set that before I connect, it reduces the workspace and is something I'd like to avoid.

Best Answer

Uncheck the pin on the "outer" RDP's toolbar to hide it. You can still get to it if necessary (hold the mouse against the edge of the screen), and any inner RDP connection toolbars will be visible.

Alternatively, other RDP clients such as Remote Desktop Manager might have a different toolbar when you run them full screen, so you'll know the custom toolbar is for the outer connection and the standard toolbars are inner connections.

Edit: Microsoft Remote Desktop Client 7.0 allows you to move the RDP toolbar from side to side by dragging it. You can move the outer toolbar to the side so you can tell it apart from the others.

Related Question