How in the Tech

Using CTRL+ALT+DEL in a Remote Desktop Session

By Adam Myers ⋅ March 24, 2009 ⋅ Tags: Shortcuts

Remote Desktop is a client/server technology from Microsoft, though originally from the folks over at Citrix, that allows a user to interactive with a computer console even if they are not local. The client portion of the equation is available for most operating systems, not just Windows. The server side technology is available in the prosumer versions of Microsoft’s operating systems: Windows NT, 2000 Server, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista Business, and 2008 Server. The client/server relationship allows a sysadmin to manage the server without physically sitting down at it. As you can imagine, this is a pretty useful and handy tool – one that I use daily.

Sitting one computer while accessing a second computer remotely introduces a few anomalies. One of which is the handling of keyboard shortcuts – specifically CTRL+ALT+DEL. Working within a Remote Desktop Connection window and initiating the keyboard combo will actually result in the action occurring on your local computer! ALT+TAB to switch between running applications also applies to the local computer; as does CTRL+ESC to bring up the Start Menu. Surprising to me, many people put up with these annoyances even though the solution is quite simple.

Microsoft has created new shortcut mappings specifically for RDC sessions.

• CTRL+ALT+DEL is translated to CTRL+ALT+END
• ALT+TAB is translated to ALT+Page Up
• CTRL+ESC is translated to ALT+Home

These are the three major ones that I use regularly. If you have any others please share below in the comments!