Peenie Wallie: Changing the RDP Port

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May 14, 2008

Changing the RDP Port

I've got three computers that I'd like to periodically connect to over RDP, but they're all listening to port 3389, and my router won't allow me to redirect ports with a pinhole the way Will's super-trick router will. It will forward an incoming request to port 3389 to any ip address I specify, but that means I can only take over one computer at a time, the way my router works.

So, the best solution IMHO is to change the port that RDP listens to on each of the computers.

1. On the XP computer that you want to access via Remote Desktop, open your favorite registry editor.

2. Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp

3. Double click the PortNumber subkey, click the Edit menu and select Modify.

4. Click Decimal.

5. In the value field, type the number of the port that you want to use instead of 3389.

6. Click OK.

7. Close the registry editor.

Now you'll need to configure the RDC client to use the new port. Here's how:

1. On the client computer, click Start | All Programs | Accessories | Communications | Remote Desktop Connection.

2. In the Computer field, type the name or IP address of the XP computer you configured above, then type a colon and the port number (for example, MyComputer:3390.

3. Click Connect.

After all of this, you still have to go into Start - Settings - Control Panel - Windows Firewall - Exceptions - And add the new port to allow TCP traffic. Otherwise, you'll never get through the firewall.

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