Microsoft Windows - How to set up a Remote Desktop connection to access a remote Windows workstation or server

Owned by Jared Nixon (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Dec 14, 2022
3 min read

  1. This guide assumes that the computer you are attempting to remotely connect to has been joined to the sooner.net.ou.edu domain and has had Remote Desktop enabled. Please visit this guide if you still need to enable Remote Desktop on the target computer.

  2. Open Microsoft Remote Desktop

    1. If the latest version is not already installed, open the Microsoft App Store and search/download

  3. Click Settings

  4. Click the “+” plus button to create a new User account

  5. Type “SOONER\” and then the user’s 4x4, for example: “SOONER\user1234”

    1. You do not need to enter the password on the screen. Once the connection is established Remote Desktop will prompt for a user password

    2. You do not need to give the account a nickname but you can if the user wants

  6. Click the blue Save button

  7. Now we need to create a connection to the UL Remote Desktop Gateway. Click the “+” plus button to create a new Gateway

  8. Type in “rdp.lib.ou.edu” in the “Server name” field

  9. Choose a user account that will authenticate to the Gateway

  10. Click the blue Save button

  11. Now we are back at the main Remote Desktop screen. Click the “+ Add” button in the top right

  12. Click on “PCs”

  13. Type in the PC host name. This is the name of the PC you are trying to connect to remotely. A typical library computer hostname is going to be “UL[PC_SerialNumber].sooner.net.ou.edu”

  14. Choose the user account that you want to use to authenticate to the remote connection. This is going to be the same user account that was set up in the Settings in Steps 4-6

  15. You can choose to name the connection to the remote PC if you would like, but it is optional.

  16. Click the blue Save button

  17. Now the connection is set up and you can test. The connection may have a certificate error, which is expected because the workstation will have a self-signed certificate. If this happens, you can click “connect anyway” or whatever equivalent to proceed.

  18. Note: If you are attempting to access the remote connection from off-campus, you will need to set up the OU VPN connection on your computer.