Windows Home Server Remote Desktop
After playing about with Microsoft Windows Home Server 2011 (Which incidentally cost less than a bog-standard Windows 7 license!) I noticed a problem that Remote Desktop is not enabled for external network access.
Three ways of solving this:
1) VPN
2) Port forwarding on your router
Forward port 3389 from your external facing router to the local hostname/IP of your WHS2011 server and then RDP externally to your internet IP address. If you don’t have a static IP or can’t remember numbers you can use a service like No-IP Free to get yourself an easy domain name to remember to map over to your server.
3) Enable External RDP in the registry (AKA: THE PROPER WAY)
Assuming you have already got your homeserver.com (or alternative) address set up … Open regedit on your server. Navigate to HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows Server/RDP and locate “EnableServerRemoteDesktop”. Change the value of this from 0 to 1.
