Remote Desktop 100% through browser?

Question

I have a Windows 2008 R2 Web edition server. Is there are way I can remote desktop connect entirely through a browser. Meaning if "Remote Desktop Connection" on my pc is blocked, I can still connect?

thanks!

Solution 1

No.................still no.

I was kind of wrong first time, if you have no control over the server then you are still out of luck but if you can get admin access then you can install the 'remote desktop web connection' subcomponent of IIS's WWW service via control panel and then browse to http://whatever/tsweb

Try it and let us know ok.

Solution 2

Old topic, but still a relevant question. As of this year, anyway, there are some options for someone who wants to use an in-browser RDP solution.

Guacamole provides "HTML5 Clientless Remote Desktop": This is intended to be set up on a third server to act as a tunnel and proxy, to allow a client computer to connect to a remote computer, without having to specially configure either the client or the remote computers. If you don't want to use an intermediate third server, I believe you can install Guacamole on the remote server you want to connect to (presuming it runs a webserver) and point it to localhost, then access that webpage from your client computer's browser (for example).

2X has a "Client for RDP/Remote Desktop for Google Chrome", which is a Chrome extension which does not require a third server.

RemoteSpark is another good option. They have a paid service, but you can apparently just download their HTML file and set it up for your own personal use if you have the savvy (source). What I would do in this case is drop the HTML file in a webserver directory on the server I want to access (on HTTPS of course), set it to connect to localhost so that no packets have to be transferred offsite anywhere except out to the client computer, hardcode all the settings I want, and put it up behind a login page with some two-factor authentication (at least one of the two factors being image-based or some other non-text or single-use method), in order to thwart keyloggers on public or otherwise insecure computers.

If you have admin control over the remote computer and want to set up and micromanage the RDP itself, you can try, say, a combination of FreeRDP and FreeRDP-WebConnect.

You can also look into Ericom's AccessNow, and CybeleSoft's ThinRDP, and of course Microsoft has provided a Remote Desktop Web Connection (also see) feature wrapped into their RDP solution since Windows XP.

Solution 3

Old Post I know but . . .

Windows Live Mesh was excellent for anyone reading this. It syncs your data across PCs but it has a hidden feature.

It has remote desktop capability that is accessible via devices.live.com

RD support of Mesh is required to be enabled first on the remote machine, and as far as I know a HTTPS tunnel is created (443)??

Solution 4

You can try this, I use this with my AWS EC2 instances.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/connect-to-another-computer-using-remote-desktop-web-connection "You can use Remote Desktop Web Connection to connect to a remote computer over the Internet. To do this, the remote computer must be running Windows Server 2008, and Terminal Services Web Access (TS Web Access) must be installed. "

Solution 5

To add to the above list of browser based RDP clients, you can also try Myrtille, an open source solution comparable to Guacamole, but running on Windows Servers. It works for both HTML4 and HTML5, useful if you have an old browser.

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Comments

[Halfgaar]

Use VNC, websockify and noVNC.

[Sam Cogan]

When you use the TSWeb site your outbound RDP traffic still goes via port 3389 (or whatever port you have setup for RDP), you can just use a browser instead of the RDP client. I'm guessing the poster wants a way to bypass outbound firewall restrictions.

[Chopper3]

suspected so sam, but at least he can try it this way I guess, cheers.