How to RDP: Linux to Windows 10

• John Vandivier

This article has end to end instructions for accessing your Windows 10 machine remotely from a Linux machine.

  1. Install Windows 10 Pro. If you have Home edition then upgrade to Pro edition.
    1. Home edition doesn't allow the native RDP tool, which we want because it works well.
    2. I recommend you do this through the official Microsoft channels using the built-in store. It's quick and easy.
    3. Type \"activation\" into Cortana and open the result which is the activation tab of the System Settings window.
    4. You will need to create and sign into a Microsoft account, add a payment method, buy the $100 upgrade, and wait ~ 20 minutes to get the activation email.
  2. In Windows 10 Pro, type \"remote\" into Cortana search and click to Allow remote access:
  3. On your Windows machine, open the command prompt (you can search in Cortana if you aren't sure where it is) and run \"ipconfig\"
  4. Make a note of the IPv4 Address which is displayed as this is the address we will use to remote from the other machine.
  5. Go over to your Linux machine and check whether Remmina is already installed. It's installed as part of the base install for Ubuntu and can be downloaded and installed for other Linux distributions.
    1. Side note: If you want to remote from Windows to Windows, instead of using Remmina just use \"Remote Desktop Connection\" from the other machine as show in the image above.
  6. Open Remmina and create a new connection.
    1. Give it any name so you will remember which machine you are connecting to. Mine just says \"desktop\" because I remote from my laptop to my desktop.
    2. Leave Group and Domain empty unless you know what you're doing.
    3. Leave protocol on RDP unless...you know...
    4. Set server equal to the IPv4 address you noted in step 4.
    5. User name and password are the same ones you would always use to login to the machine if you were physically there.
    6. You can adjust Resolution and Color Depth to taste. I usually set color to True Color (24 bpp). There may be a connection speed impact to using high res and high color.
    7. Leave Share Folder unchecked.
    8. Click save and then connect!