📅 2011-Feb-03 ⬩ ✍️ Ashwin Nanjappa ⬩ 🏷️ rdp, windows ⬩ 📚 Archive
Why?
Reducing the color depth used for a remote session is one way to speed up the Remote Desktop (RDP) session on a slow network connection. 15-bit is the lowest color depth allowed in the Remote Desktop Connection client (mstsc.exe
) of Windows 7. But, the Remote Desktop client of Windows XP had allowed a lower color depth of 8-bit (256 colors). The remote session surely looks crappy with 256 colors, but it can be a lifesaver on a slow connection! 😊
How?
There is no direct way to choose 256 colors in the Remote Desktop of Windows 7. But, a remote session can be invoked with 256 colors:
Set all the remote desktop settings for the connection and save it to a RDP (.rdp
) file by choosing Save As in the General tab.
Open this .rdp
file in a text editor. Find the line that reads session bpp:i:16
. The value here will read 15, 16, 24 or 32, depending on the color depth you had chosen while saving the file. Change this line to session bpp:i:8
Use this .rdp
file to open a RDP session to the remote computer. This can be done by either opening this file in the Remote Desktop Connection client or by double-clicking this file. The remote session will now use a 8-bit color depth.
Tried with: Remote Desktop Connection client (mstsc.exe) 6.1.7600.16385 on Windows 7