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Transfering Files From Local Computer to Connected Remote Desktop Session

Posted By Raymond In Category: Computer

May
21
2009

Recently one of my good friend asked me to help him set up a Counter-Strike Source dedicated server on his rented Windows 2008 server. I’ve previously done that on a Linux system before and I don’t think it’d be a problem to do that on a Windows server since there are documentation to teach how to do that. In Linux, I get to run commands using PuTTy via SSH and transfer files using FTP.
remote desktop files icon
As for Windows, the server administrator gave me only a user account to login with Remote Desktop Connection. In SSH, all I see is a black colored console box and everything is in command line but in Remote Desktop Connection, I get to control the computer remotely like I am sitting in front of the computer. I couldn’t use FTP to upload files from my computer to the server because the server admin didn’t install a FTP service. There are scripts and plugins that I need to transfer from my computer to the server and I was thinking of the best way to do it. I could email the files to my own email account and then download from the server, or I can upload it to my website or rapidshare and then download from the server, or I can create a temporary FTP server on my computer and then download the required files.

Creating a temporary FTP server on my computer seems to be the best solution because it only involves one way transfer instead of uploading and then downloading. After checking the Remote Desktop Connection settings, I found that RDC already has support for making my computer files available to a remote desktop connection session. Here is how to set it up.


You can run Remote Desktop Connection from Start > Programs > Accessories > Remote Desktop Connection. You should see a small box to enter a computer IP address or hostname with a few buttons such as Connect, Cancel, Help and Options.

transfer files remote desktop connection

By default Remote Desktop Connection doesn’t map my local computer drives to the remote computer. You’ll need to click the Options button, go to Local Resources tab, click the More button at Local devices and Resource, and check Drives to map all your local drives to the server. Instead of mapping all drives, you can also map the drives that you want by expanding the drive category.

map local drives in remote desktop connection

When you connect, you should get a warning asking you do you trust this remote connection because you’ve allowed the remote computer to access your local drives on your computer. After clicking Connect, open My Computer and you should see your local drives on the remote computer. Now you can start transferring files from your computer to the remote server WITHOUT installing FTP services or upload it to rapidshare to download later.

drives mapped in remote desktop

I also found out that you can also copy and paste files from local to remote desktop if you’ve enabled mapping of local drive resources. Let’s say I open a text file on my computer and I copied the content to the clipboard. I am able to paste the clipboard content to the remote computer that is connected via Remote Desktop Connection!


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    • manoj

      Thanks Ray .. for this nice info…

      keep posting… :)

    • Raitokun

      Very nice tip Ray, thanks.

    • Paul

      Much better than that is setting up an SSH server on the Win2k8 (I use FreeSSHD – www . freesshd . com) and using WinSCP (winscp . net) to upload/download files.
      It takes less than 5 minutes to set up and is all free.

      Especially on slower uplink connections that is much faster than RDP file transfer (try it yourself: open your local %WINDIR%\system32 on the remote desktop and count the time it takes to display).
      Besides that it supports bandwidth throtteling, resume and it does not expose your local file system to security flaws of MS.

      Paul

    • Mahdi

      Exactly what am lookin for. Thanks Rey. Your Blog is still my home page for about a year. lol TC

    • Paul

      “I also found out that you can also copy and paste files from local to remote desktop if you’ve enabled mapping of local drive resources. Let’s say I open a text file on my computer and I copied the content to the clipboard. I am able to paste the clipboard content to the remote computer that is connected via Remote Desktop Connection!”

      Clipboard transfer is standard behavior of RDP, no matter which sort of “mapping” you choose.
      It ALWAYS works, except the server administrator disabled it in the Terminal Services Configuration | Connections | Properties of RDP 5.x| Client Settings
      The checkboxes name is “clipboard mapping”.

      If CM is not disabled but does not work use taskmanager to kill the process rdpclip.exe and then Rtart | Run | rdpclip.exe. That fixes it.

    • http://www.troublefixers.com Rohit

      good one !

    • brayden

      Raymond is that your computer it has all the statistics for? If so your computer is so powerful.

      oh and thanks for the article, i personally hate windows server to be honest.

    • maria

      as always..u gave me another idea…thanz

    • Julie

      Raymond-

      On occasion, the copy/paste functionality just doesn’t work correctly. It can be caused by rdpclip.exe not loading due to the fDisableClip setting in the Windows registry.

      You can read about how to restore the copy/paste functionality over RDP at http://thebackroomtech.com/2009/05/14/fix-rdpclip-exe-wont-run-on-windows-server-2003/

      Thanks

      -Julie

    • http://www.ficforlife.com Hok

      Thx Raymond / Paul. I use RDC to because I have decent laptop Dell Latitude D630 and an older PC. The PC has Samsung monitor 953BW. I am lazy to use analog (the DVI is attached in the PC VGA). So I use RDC. I have a gigabit lan both my pc and laptop and can transfer file 45 MB/s (HDD Limitation). I use RDP using 28 / 56 Kbps to get 45 MB/s. When I choose full experience 10 mbps RDC, my transfer rate drop to 14 MB/s. Using 56 kbps I can watch windowed movie, but not for full screen movie. I hear the Windows 7 RDC will be much much more better. This is my sharing using RDC.

    • Calz

      Thanks for this ray pretty useful information.
      I have been looking into this for family members when they get problems or need files from me.

    • Firas

      Thank you Raymond :-)

    • http://blognya.za3mon.com Za3mOn

      Intel Xeon with 8GB memory.. w00t!

    • Finn

      Hello Raymond. I am using Win7, can this be done the same way?

      thanks. Finn

    • esp

      i am keen to learn how to transfer file from the internet to local computer.

      Eg. From your office computer, transfer the file to your home computer.

    • MarkM

      Thanks! Although, for some reason, it doesn’t work at all for me. I followed every step, I can’t see my disks on the remote server, or its disks on mine. I can copy and paste text, but i can’t copy and paste files or folders. I looked in the M$ knowledge base, it says the same as here, but no joy.

    • Jorge

      I would like one!!!

    • jOnaTaS

      cara vlw..mt bom mesmo..me ajudo pakas..

    • victoria

      pls give me the exact sample coding in asp.net how to read file using remote desktop

    • pols

      Thanks to this article it helps me a lot… cheers!! ^_^

    • http://networkmelayu.blogspot.com rozai

      Thanx 4 the info….help me a lot!

    • Yogesh

      Nice and useful information – helped me as I was looking for exactly this feature. People like you are a great help! Cheers :-)

    • Felipe

      Foi muito util essa informação. utilizo essa conexão a algum tempo e não sabia como fazer a transferencia de arquivos.
      Obrigado pela dica.

    • John

      Thanks for the help, it saved a lot of time :)

    • Bill

      Hi Raymond, do you know how to run a batch on the remote machine to copy files from the local machine? I have identical folder setup on the remote machine as my local machine and I need to periodically update some of the files on the remote machine from my local machine, but I don’t want to have to copy and paste files. Thanks.

    • Bill

      Figured it out, map a drive to the local drive using

      net use X: \\tsclient\c <– X or whatever drive letter you like

      then just use copy or xcopy from the mapped drive

      Thanks

    • ronaldo

      nossa, descobriu a america…

    • http://www.remotedesktopmac.com Amy

      Very cool post. I thought maybe the readers of this page would benefit from a remote desktop software comparison chart that I was involved in putting together, since they likely use remote desktop software. (http://www.remotedesktopmac.com/remote-desktop-comparison-chart). If you think if would be beneficial, please add it as a reference on this page. The chart made the first page of digg and has been tweeted like crazy, so people are finding it useful.

      Thanks!

      - Amy

    • Erick

      Thanks for this post man, really helped me out

      Erick

    • http://Useful! Nemanja

      Very useful tip! TnX!

    • George

      Thanks Raymond, you have helped me out a lot.
      And thank you to Bill, who had the same question as myself.

      On remote via RDP
      eg: xcopy F:\*.mdb \\tsclient\Z\*.* /E /R /K /Y

      from “F:\” on remote to “Z:\” on local

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