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i want to open remote desktop directly from shortcut. I want to embed password within shortcut.

And how to get path of remote desktop from .RDP shortcut.

Can we set password in .RDP shortcut.

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3 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

When saving the RDP file, check off the Save my password checkbox. This will save your password to the .RDP file in an encrypted format. Be careful though, as people have found out how to decrypt it:

alt text

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how to add password manually to open RDP file in note pad – metal gear solid Feb 28 '10 at 17:33
This is not a problem anymore with MSTSC v6 - the credentials are stored elsewhere on the system (Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Credentials), and as far as I know, they are encrypted with the user's login password. – grawity Feb 28 '10 at 18:39
I already have RDP file. I want to edit the file and insert password – metal gear solid Mar 1 '10 at 3:16
@Jitendra the file stores the password in an encrypted format, it's not as simple as opening it and typing password:abc123. If you can find a tool to encrypt them into that format then you can, but I doubt somebody would bother making such a tool. – John T Mar 1 '10 at 6:09

Try editing the .rdp files directly. I found an article, How rdp passwords are encrypted, saying how, and deep down, in the posts, there is some code for how to do this in C# too:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

class Mstscpw
{
    private const int CRYPTPROTECT_UI_FORBIDDEN = 0x1;
    // Wrapper for the NULL handle or pointer.
    static private IntPtr NullPtr = ((IntPtr)((int)(0)));
    // Wrapper for DPAPI CryptProtectData function.
    [DllImport("crypt32.dll", SetLastError = true,
    CharSet = System.Runtime.InteropServices.CharSet.Auto)]
    private static extern bool CryptProtectData(
    ref DATA_BLOB pPlainText,
    [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)]string szDescription,
    IntPtr pEntroy,
    IntPtr pReserved,
    IntPtr pPrompt,
    int dwFlags,
    ref DATA_BLOB pCipherText);
    // BLOB structure used to pass data to DPAPI functions.
    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
    internal struct DATA_BLOB
    {
        public int cbData;
        public IntPtr pbData;
    }

    private static void InitBLOB(byte[] data, ref DATA_BLOB blob)
    {
        blob.pbData = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(data.Length);
        if (blob.pbData == IntPtr.Zero)
            throw new Exception("Unable to allocate buffer for BLOB data.");

        blob.cbData = data.Length;
        Marshal.Copy(data, 0, blob.pbData, data.Length);
    }

    public string encryptpw(string pw)
    {
        byte[] pwba = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(pw);
        DATA_BLOB dataIn = new DATA_BLOB();
        DATA_BLOB dataOut = new DATA_BLOB();
        StringBuilder epwsb = new StringBuilder();
        try
        {
            try
            {
                InitBLOB(pwba, ref dataIn);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw new Exception("Cannot initialize dataIn BLOB.", ex);
            }

            bool success = CryptProtectData(
            ref dataIn,
            "psw",
            NullPtr,
            NullPtr,
            NullPtr,
            CRYPTPROTECT_UI_FORBIDDEN,
            ref dataOut);

            if (!success)
            {
                int errCode = Marshal.GetLastWin32Error();
                throw new Exception("CryptProtectData failed.", new Win32Exception(errCode));
            }

            byte[] epwba = new byte[dataOut.cbData];
            Marshal.Copy(dataOut.pbData, epwba, 0, dataOut.cbData);
            // Convert hex data to hex characters (suitable for a string)
            for (int i = 0; i < dataOut.cbData; i++)
                epwsb.Append(Convert.ToString(epwba[i], 16).PadLeft(2, '0').ToUpper());
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw new Exception("unable to encrypt data.", ex);
        }
        finally
        {
            if (dataIn.pbData != IntPtr.Zero)
                Marshal.FreeHGlobal(dataIn.pbData);

            if (dataOut.pbData != IntPtr.Zero)
                Marshal.FreeHGlobal(dataOut.pbData);
        }
        return epwsb.ToString();
    }
}
// Test code:
class program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Mstscpw mstscpw = new Mstscpw();
        string epw = mstscpw.encryptpw("password");
        Console.WriteLine("Encrypted password for \"password\" {0} characters: \r\n{1}", epw.Length, epw);
        Console.ReadLine();
    }
}
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Remote Desktop Plus from Donkz.nl.

Feature #1:

Login automatically from the command line.

Example:

rdp /v:nlmail01 /u:administrator /p:P@ssw0rd! /max
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