At work I’ve switched from using VNC to lots of Windows Remote Desktop to get into my development boxes.  The feature of VNC I missed the most was being able to resize the window to a smaller size and have it shrink the display contents so that there were no scroll bars.  I was pretty disappointed when I didn’t see this as an available feature.  I was excited when I found out it was a hidden feature though!  I also found out that there is a way to have the remote desktop span multiple monitors.

To take advantage of these two features, you will need to create a Remote Desktop Profile (RDP) with the lost and forgotten settings and pass that to the remote desktop executable as a parameter.

Open up the remote desktop client, enter in your specifics, and click on Save As under Connection Settings.

Save the RDP file somewhere on your computer.  I saved mine in C:\Scripts\ as remote_828_Jason.rdp

Open up the RDP file you just saved in a text editor.  This file contains the settings for your remote desktop profile.  An example profile looks like the following:

screen mode id:i:1
desktopwidth:i:1440
desktopheight:i:900
session bpp:i:32
winposstr:s:0,1,1568,53,2368,653
compression:i:1
keyboardhook:i:2
displayconnectionbar:i:1
disable wallpaper:i:1
disable full window drag:i:1
allow desktop composition:i:0
allow font smoothing:i:0
disable menu anims:i:1
disable themes:i:0
disable cursor setting:i:0
bitmapcachepersistenable:i:1
full address:s:JG828
audiomode:i:0
redirectprinters:i:1
redirectcomports:i:0
redirectsmartcards:i:1
redirectclipboard:i:1
redirectposdevices:i:0
drivestoredirect:s:
autoreconnection enabled:i:1
authentication level:i:0
prompt for credentials:i:0
negotiate security layer:i:1
remoteapplicationmode:i:0
alternate shell:s:
shell working directory:s:
gatewayhostname:s:
gatewayusagemethod:i:4
gatewaycredentialssource:i:4
gatewayprofileusagemethod:i:0
promptcredentialonce:i:1
username:s:JG\Jason

Note: You can create these RDP files manually, you do not need to use the ‘Save As’ feature in RD.

To add either smart sizing or dual monitor support, add either (or both) of the following to the RDP file and save:

smart sizing:i:1
span monitors:i:1

Now that you have your RDP file, it is best if you create a shortcut to the Remote Desktop application and tell it to use your new profile.

Right click on your desktop (or any location) and select New -> Shortcut.

For the location, enter in the following with the appropriate edit for your RDP file:
%windir%\system32\mstsc.exe /f /edit c:\scripts\remote_828_Jason.rdp