remote desktop portable

Microsoft Remote Desktop is one of those great day-to-day tools that I use quite often. If you use multiple Windows computers in different locations, it allows you to connect to them and use them as if you were sitting directly in front of them. If you access computers remotely from guest machines where you use portable apps, you can make Remote Desktop a portable application with relative ease.

To make Remote Desktop a portable app, you will need to copy four files from your Windows system.  Two of them, mstc.exe and mstscax.dll are located in the C:\WINDOWS\system32 directory.

remote desktop portable files

The other two, mstsc.exe.mui and mstscax.dll.mui, are located in a subdirectory within C:\WINDOWS\system32. The name of the subdirectory will depend on the language and locale of the Windows system you are using. If your language is English and you are in the USA, they will be located in C:\WINDOWS\system32\en-us.

portable remote desktop client

When you copy the files to your drive, you will want to replicate this structure. Let's say you are in the USA, your portable drive is Y:, and your portable apps reside in Y:\PortableApps. You can create a new Folder in PortableApps called Y:\PortableApps\RemoteDesktop

Portable Remote Desktop Directory

Within the RemoteDesktop directory, you would create a subdirectory with your locale. If you have an English installation in the USA, create a subdirectory called en-us. Then copy mstsc.exe and mstscax.dll into RemoteDesktop and mstsc.exe.mui, and mstscax.dll.mui into en-us.

That's all there is to it!  Now you can take portable Remote Desktop client on the road with you. I prefer Remote Desktop to VNC, because I find it to be faster at higher color depths.

What portable remote control program(s) do you use?