Remote Sounds Over Remote Desktop Connection

Don writes, "I have set up my old Window XP Pro PC to my home theater system and it works fine. However, I would like to control the PC via RDC so I do not need a monitor or have to buy a video card to hook to my TV. I will RDC from my new Vista machine and have the music play through the Home theater and not the Vista PC. Is this possible? When i remote into the XP machine, all the sound goes to the Vista machine and not the home theater."

By default Remote Desktop brings the sounds from the remote PC to the local PC, which is useful if you are truly working remotely but not ideal in your case. To keep the sounds on the remote PC playing through your home theater, you need to change one of the RDC options before you connect.

When you first launch RDC, one of the buttons available is Options.

Remote Desktop connect screen

After clicking the options button, click on the Local Resources tab. In the Remote Computer Sound section of the Local Resources, choose the option to Leave at Remote Computer.

The next time you connect you should get sounds on your home theater while connected via your other computer.