Microsoft has released a new free remote desktop application for iOS and Android that is free, simple and useful to anyone wishing to connect to their computer using their smartphone or tablet. To be clear immediately, this is the official Microsoft app of the Windows Remote Desktop which is used to connect to a PC or Windows server that is located on the same network.
Unless you do a port forwarding on the router, the application only works to connect to a computer connected in wifi to the same network as the smartphone or tablet.
As expected, you can control practically any computer from your Android or iPhone phone or iPad or other tablet using your finger on the touchscreen without difficulty.
Among the features, in addition to remote access on the computer (RDP), there is also:
- Secure connection for data and applications with network-level authentication;
- High quality video and audio streaming with better compression and optimized use of bandwidth
- Easy connection to external monitors or presentation projectors-
The application is optimized for Windows 8 so you can use it touchscreen from an iPad or Android tablet.
Using it is not really easy to configure because it does not provide an automated wiard.
It is therefore necessary to write the various parameters by hand and, precisely, the IP address of the computer to be connected to, the IP address of the gateway or router and then the login and password of that Windows computer or the domain.
On the Windows PC, the possibility to receive connections in remote desktop must be enabled and, to do so, go to Control Panel -> System> Advanced settings> Remote connection .
This tool should come in handy for all computer administrators in offices or companies who need to connect to servers in RDP from iPhone or Android.
It can also be useful for normal users who can take advantage of the tablet to watch computer movies in streaming.
The download of Microsoft Remote Desktop can be done for free for Android from Google Play and for iOS from the iTunes Store .
However, being limited to the corporate or home network and not being very simple to configure initially, it may not be the best there is.
In another article we have listed the 10 best apps to access PC or Mac from Android and iPhone and iPad, via the internet, including the best Teamviewer, Splashtop and Pocket Cloud which also supports the Windows RDP Remote Desktop.
