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Is there a way to get 'user friendly' names to show in remote desktop connection tool?

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what do you mean with 'user friendly names'? Hostname vs IP address? – madmaze Jan 21 '11 at 20:05
I mean not host or IP address, but a name that I create. – Chris Jan 21 '11 at 21:24
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Can't you just edit the hosts file? – Hello71 Jan 21 '11 at 23:01
@Hello71: how do you do that? – Chris Jan 21 '11 at 23:20
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I'm pinching @Hello71's idea here, but you can edit your hosts file in Windows to add a reference to a friendly name, for a given IP address.

Open the following file in Windows Notepad or your favourite text editor (notice there is no file extension):

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

In that file, you'll want to add a row at the bottom for your friendly name (the # is a comment parser and is ignored by the OS:

# Friendly name example
192.168.1.1        friendlyname

In this example, the IP address is your remote connection, and friendlyname is your chosen name. Once you save this file (in Windows XP, you would have had to refresh with nbtstat -R (or restart)), all networking related activities on your machine will work with that friendly name.

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+1 for stealing my idea which I was too lazy to write out – Hello71 Jan 22 '11 at 15:43
The problem with using hosts is that it makes no allowance for dynamic addresses. If your target IP is static, then that's just fine, but suppose the target is whatever.dyndns.com or similar dynamic addressing? Unless your remote user remembers the host entry, they'll chase their tail when the address changes and their RDP session fails to connect. – Blackbeagle Jan 23 '11 at 10:01
@Blackbeagle, I would think this issue is mitigated by the fact that dynamic DNS allows you to choose more "friendly" names anyway. – Randolph West Jan 23 '11 at 17:12
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Well, the username is going to be whatever it is that you create, provided your referring to "username" not "computer name."

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When you configure the RDP, there is an options button on the bottom left side. Hit it, finish all your configuration and choose Save As and name it whatever you want.

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