RDP on work computer

[owdi]

I do this as well and feel your pain OP. I RDP from my personal computer with a nice monitor, kb, & mouse to my underpowered work laptop. The laptop, having only 16gb of ram, can barely run my work apps. I minimize the RDP session and use my main PC for anything that requires browsing the internet. It's much faster switching this way than a KVM.

Nested RDP sessions work great as well. RDP to laptop, RDP to jump box over VPN, then RDP to server. Performance is great.

To say RDP is insecure is laughable. It's used everywhere to access Windows servers, and there haven't been any significant vulnerabilities in Windows 10. Lock down access with firewall and require 2FA to log in.

 

[owdi]

Input Director + Monitor Inputs > KVM

I received a new laptop and can no longer RDP into it. Authentication is blocked via GPO, which is not something I would try to bypass.

I've now switched to using multiple inputs on my monitors for video/audio switching, and Input Director for keyboard/mouse switching.

Input Director lets me switch kb/mouse from work laptop to home computer in the same amount of time as moving a mouse across multiple monitors. I actually added a 100ms lag as it was too quick. I did reduce the polling rate on my mouse from 1000hz to 500hz since I occasionally got lag at 1000hz, otherwise no issues.

https://www.inputdirector.com/
https://cpstest.org/polling-rate-test/

 

[owdi]

For those working from home without RDP, I found a way to switch monitor inputs using keyboard shortcuts!

The Nirsoft Control My Monitor utility let's you apply settings to your monitor, including the active input!

In my case, I found my monitor accepts settings from any connected input, even if it's not active. This means I only need to install this utility and keyboard shortcuts on my PC. I can now Ctrl + Alt + L to switch input to laptop, then Ctrl + Alt + P for PC. I no longer need to navigate the crappy menus on my monitor to switch input, and I still get full DP/HDMI bandwidth from each device.