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If you are connecting to your office computer from home via a Remote Desktop Connection and noticing a significant lag/slowness in your connection, try modifying your Remote Desktop Connection options.
Modify Remote Desktop Connection Options
Tip: When changing settings, make one change at a time, testing after each one.
Adjust Your Connection Speed
Open your Remote Desktop Connection box and at the lower-left click Show Options.
Click the Experience tab.
Under Choose your connection speed:
- If you have a high-speed connection such as High-speed Broadband, select your connection, then deselect features you deem unnecessary to your experience.
- You can also try selecting a connection speed that is lower than what is provided by your ISP.
- If you are not experiencing noticeable connection issues, it is recommended to leave Detect connection quality automatically selected.
Below your selected connection speed, if the "Allow the following" list is active you can uncheck additional features so they are not used when you connect. The features in this list make your Remote Desktop Session more pleasant visually but require more bandwidth through your connection.
Click Connect to test if there is an improvement to your remote connection speed. You may want to test several connection speeds to see if you can find a good balance between the performance of your remote connection and what you are willing to sacrifice in your visual experience.
Change your Display Configuration
If your Remote Desktop screen is set to fill your home screen, you may want to modify your Display configuration. Larger desktop screen sizes require more memory and bandwidth.
Open your Remote Desktop Connection box and at the lower-left click Show Options.
Click the Display tab.
Under Display configuration, move the slider to the left so your remote desktop display does not fill the screen, requiring fewer resources to run.
If you have checked Use all my monitors, consider un-checking this and work with one monitor if possible. Here again, displaying only one of your office computer screens during your remote desktop session will lower the demand on computer memory and bandwidth.
Always test to see if your changes have made an improvement to your remote connection speed.
Contact the IT Service Desk for additional help!