How-To Geek
How to Forward Local Drives to Remote Machines Using Remote Desktop
Have you ever had a file on a flash drive that you needed to use on a machine that is situated in another building or even halfway across the world? You can do that by plugging it into your local machine and then forwarding the drive through your remote session to that machine. Here’s how to do it.
Press the Windows Key and R to bring up a run box, and type mstsc to launch the Remote Desktop Connection Dialog, or you can just search for Remote Desktop in the Start Menu.
Click on the arrow next to options to see some of the more advanced options.
Once the interface has extended, switch to the Local Resources tab.
Now click on the more button, to see a more extensive list of things that you can forward to the remote machine.
Once you have clicked and expanded the drives, you will see a list of all the devices in your PC, you can forward anything from your CD/DVD drive to a USB drive that you have connected. Check the box next to any of the drive that you want to forward.
Now you can connect to the remote machine as you normally would.
Now if you open explorer on the remote machine you will see you drive, it will appear as if it has been mapped.
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Comments (13)
Taylor Gibb is a Microsoft MVP and all round geek, he loves everything from Windows 8 to Windows Server 2012 and even C# and PowerShell. You can also follow him on Google+
- Published 11/19/11
Thanks!! this trick is very useful to me, it will save me many hours of file transfer via FTP or Dropbox.
Thats great – i’ve been using remote desktop for ages and never noticed that it had this functionality!
Good tip, thanks a million.
Regards,
Ahmed
Can I do this for a network drive without having a pc turn on?, thanks
Thanks for the Tip.
Will this option work in Windows XP ? Or is there any other equivalent for this in XP?
Do an article on using “Teamiewer Free” which can accomplish the same -almost??
This can also be turned off via policies for added security.
For example, at work, we have a farm of remote desktops – you go to one address, the PC you actually log on to differs as it’s load balanced. But using policies, drive, clipboard – all of the sharing features can be disabled.
Of course, if you’re using your own machines. You’re probably not going to want to do that.
thank u) nice tip
I feeling weird problem with HTG website from some time. I am on GPRS connection through tethering to PC. The Images does not load unless that is on screen. Means if i’m on another tab or browser is minimized screen shot images does not show on page. This is annoying for slow connection people.
Thats a very useful tip… Thanks for the valuable tip…
Help please! I have an Omega external drive on my computer, basically used for back up. My wife has a ton of pictures on her laptop that she would like to back up on the external. I have XP she has Vista….will this work? Or how could I accomplish this? I just want to copy the pictures from her laptop to my external — that is all. We have a network here at the house, but I have no idea how to set it up so that she can just access the external drive. ANY help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!! New to HTG and really digging it!!
Hey, can anyone tell me what to type in ?
Computer: ?
User Name:?
Hi
It ‘s wonderful
with this way we can copy and paste data in the other computer?
Thank ‘s