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I use a laptop and I am docking and undocking frequently. Often when I connect to another machine using remote desktop, the screen size gets messed up when I dock again. By "messed up" I mean that it stays the size of my lap top screen (wide screen ratio). Clicking maximize will not get it to go full screen.

Any ideas (other than a reboot) how I can reset this?

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The problem is that the RDP-client remembers the resolution of your last connection.

This can be remedied by adjusting the resolution in the RDP-connection dialog to "Full Screen"

Options >> Display > Remote Desktop Size: Full Screen (to the right)

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Another possibility is to create a desktop shortcut for each of your frequently used resolutions. This can be done by making a shortcut to RDP and adding the following flags:

/w:[width] and /h:[height]

Examples of shortcuts would then be:

Docked: %SystemRoot%\system32\mstsc.exe /w:1600 /h:1200

Laptop: %SystemRoot%\system32\mstsc.exe /w:1920 /h:1200

alt text

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    As an alternative to the /w and /h parameters you could use /f which specifies full screen. (Which is what I use :) – Andi Mohr Jun 25 '14 at 8:57
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Try hotkey

In Windows 7, clicking maximize does maximize the window, but it doesn't go full screen.
While in a remote desktop connection session, try Ctrl-Alt-Break. That should force the RDC window to go full screen.

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    +1 This worked perfectly! I never knew of this shortcut! This is just what I needed as my laptop seems to loose the full screen ability every time it goes in to standby. – William Hilsum Jul 13 '10 at 16:46
  • For information, this solution is getting a lot of "thank you" answers from different people (which are deleted by moderators, answers should be used only to answer the question). – Gnoupi Jul 29 '10 at 15:14
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    This did not work well for me. While the RDC window does maximize to the new resolution, the desktop itself does not stretch to the full height and width. I get blackspace all around the desktop as if it's both pillar boxed and letter boxed. – oscilatingcretin Apr 29 '14 at 13:44
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    @oscilatingcretin: What you are experiencing is a different issue. Ctrl-Alt-Break won't fix that. You need to set the display size to "full screen" when you connect. – oldSchool Apr 29 '14 at 19:42
  • Can you put a reference to MS documentation. This worked for me like a charm. – Unreason Jun 17 '14 at 11:13
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Try KB2582172 hotfix

Maximizing will not cause it to go into full screen mode again due to a bug. However, Microsoft released a hotfix.

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  • That only applies when the resolution is 1366x768 (typically when the client is at that resolution, which is quite common in laptops). But thanks for mentioning this here - it took me a while to figure out there was a known bug and hotfix when I first came across this. – Bob Nov 25 '12 at 10:50
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I have seen this problem before. The easiest way to fix this is to alter the display resolution from the display applet in control panel. Set the screen to the right resolution manually and your problem should be fixed.

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    The problem is that the remote desktop session screen resolution and the client screen resolution match, but the remote desktop window is not set to full-screen mode, so maximizing it still shows the window bar and scrollbars, despite the resolutions matching and it not being necessary to show the windows border and scrollbars. That's why the alt+ctrl+pause/break method works. In windows 7, when you set it to full screen... it remembers the actual resolution of the screen at that moment, rather than "full screen". This happens when I start a connection from the remote desktop jump list. – Triynko Sep 22 '10 at 14:37

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