Can you RDP to a Windows 2000 Professional machine?

Question

I have a small home network with 3 machines - a Windows 2000 machine, an XP machine, and a Vista machine. I'm using Remote Desktop to connect between them, which is working fine when connecting to the XP and Vista machines (even from the Win2K machine). However I haven't been able to figure out how to connect to the Win2K machine. Is this even possible with Windows 2000 Pro?

I know it's possible with Win2K Server (using Terminal Services), and I know there are non-Microsoft utilities out there (e.g. VNC) to accomplish this (which I'm not opposed to using if I have to). I just want to find out first if it's just a configuration issue, or just some component I need to install... something like that.

Solution 1

JNK wrote That’s what’s in the MS link in my answer.

Unfortunately, the instructions in that MS link require using the W2K server CD, but the question was about RDP’ing to a W2K-Pro system.

There are no Windows components available for adding to a W2K Pro system that will let it provide RDP service that a remote client could connect to.

If you look at the Properties section of that page, you will see:

Article ID: 300847 - Last Review: November 1, 2006 - Revision: 2.4 APPLIES TO Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server

Solution 2

XP is backwards compatible with Win2k hosts. You may need to configure the 2000 machine first, though. I don't think it was a default option in Win2k like it was in later builds.

Comments

[Joe_Rose]

+1 - That's what's in the MS link in my answer.

[Isaac Rabinovitch]

Hey Justin. Thanks for your contribution to Superuser. Note that this is a Q&A site, not a discussion site. You might want to edit your answer so that it stands on its own, instead of being part of a conversation with another user.