Peripheral Hardware

To a Remote Desktop device, the Terminal server is the local computer. Consequently, devices such as disk drives and printers attached to the server appear as local devices to a client. In contrast, drives and printers attached to a client terminal appear to be remote devices. To access a device attached to a client terminal, you must use the UNC name of the client share or printer, just as you would any other remote share or printer.

The initial release of Terminal Services did not support applications that send output directly to serial, parallel, and sound ports attached to the client terminal. The current version supports redirection to these ports.

However, care must be taken when selecting the RDP redirected printer type. If the selection does not match the actual printer manufacturer and model, the RDP server will not be able to load the correct print driver. If the print driver is not compatible, invalid printed results can appear.

Windows CE .NET cannot verify the printer type. The print model and type information is sent from the Windows CE client to the RDP server that auto-configures the matching print driver. If the printer is replaced with another incompatible type, print output will be incorrect.

See Also

Terminal Services Programming Guidelines

 Last updated on Saturday, April 10, 2004

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