Remote Desktop: Changing The Listening Port

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From the computer of: shamanstears (738 recipes)
Created: Dec 07, 2006     Updated: Dec 11, 2006

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Changing the listening port for Remote Desktop can have its advantages, particularly if you are remoting in from behind a firewall. Since a lot of public firewalls (hotels, airports, etc.) block most ports except for those used for email and internet access, using the default settings for Remote Desktop will not work on them. As long as you are not remoting into a machine that is serving secure sites, you can change the listening port to 443 and access your machine from almost anywhere. Just follow these instructions:

1. Open Regedit.

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp.

3. Find the dword value named PortNumber.

4. Change the value to 443.

5. Close Regedit and reboot.

To connect, open the remote client and type in the hostname or address followed by :443.