Servers get updated every so often and upgrading a terminal server leaves you with one nagging issue, how to update all the client PC RDP connections? TLA reader Phillip Ward wrote this little tip on how to automate this!

Recently a senior network administrator asked me to configure remote desktop on nearly all of the machines to point to a terminal server, with their username and domain name for the main site. Well, I could have gone around and sat at everyone’s desk and configured their settings, or I could have used VNC to get to their systems and set them up, but that’s still a LOT of users to configure. Well, I figured I could set my own system up for the remote desktop, and then just copy the configuration to each of the machines in one smooth move. First I set my own machine up to point to the terminal server, but substituted my user name for %username%

After I configured the computer to point to, the %username%, and Domain, I clicked “Save As” and saved it as the Default.rdp. The default folder the file is saved to is My Documents. I then copied the configuration file to my server. I also created a link to Remote Desktop and saved it on the server as well. Instead of having all of the users searching through their programs trying to find Remote Desktop, I figured I'd make it easier on them by putting a shortcut to the program on their desktop.

I then wrote a simple little batch file to copy that Default.rdp configuration file to everyones My Documents folder on their computers, as well as putting a copy of the shortcut on their desktop.

copy /y \\server1\apps1\rd\Default.rdp "C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\My Documents\"

copy /y \\server1\apps1\rd\Prolog.lnk "C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\desktop\"

When they logged on to their system, the batch file ran, it copied and overwrote their default remote desktop configuration (If they had one already). Around 80 systems configured and set up in less than 5 minutes time.