The Remote Options allows you to customize the way the Mini Remote Control program will communicate with the remote machine.
View Only:
If View Only mode is enabled the local keyboard and mouse input is not sent to the remote machine during the Mini Remote Control session. However, you can click on the View Only toolbar button after you connect to toggle between having control and View Only.
Show Remote Cursor:
Displays the remote machine’s mouse cursor in the MRC connection window during the remote connect session.
Enable Remote Clipboard:
The Remote Clipboard option allows you to copy and paste text from the local machine’s clipboard to the remote machine and visa versa. The Remote Clipboard only supports plain text.
Lock Remote Keyboard & Mouse:
This option locks the remote keyboard & mouse during the Mini Remote Control session.
(Note: Windows NT4 Service Pack 3 / Windows 2000 / Windows XP / Windows 2003 only)
*Note: We cannot guarantee the Lock Remote Keyboard & Mouse will work in every given scenario (hardware/software combination), and this functionality should be fully tested before relying on it in a production environment.
Please also keep in mind that our software can only block hardware interrupts, not software (injected). This is exactly why the MRC program can still use the keyboard & mouse after we make a connection, even though it's locked for the user on the remote machine.
This functionality is built directly into Microsoft's Low-Level Keyboard & Mouse hooking. This functionality was also not available prior to NT4-SP3, and it will never work at the Login Desktop or Lock Screen. It’s also not possible to prevent the user on the remote machine from pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE. This can only be accomplished using low-level drivers, which the MRC program does not support because it would also require a reboot of the remote machine.
Enable Blank Monitor
Allows you to blank the monitor on the remote machine during the remote connect session.
*Note: Must enable the Lock Remote Keyboard & Mouse setting first. This functionality is also not directly supported, and is simply using standard Microsoft API calls, which could fail for whatever reason if the remote machine does not support this functionality.
Disable Keyboard Translation:
Enabling this option bypasses the translation of the keyboard scan code to an ASCI character and sends the local keyboard’s scan code instead of the ACSI character to the remote machine. Enabling this option can improve performance if you know that the local and remote machines are using the same type of keyboard.
*Note:
By default the Mini Remote Control is designed for improved compatibility with different local and remote keyboards. It translates the keyboard scan code to an ACSI character before it sends to the remote machine and then translates the ACSI character back to the remote keyboards scan code for the same character.
Enable Foreign Keyboard Mapping:
During the connection process, the Mini Remote Control program will prompt the local MRC user with the following dialog box if it encounters a remote machine using different Regional Keyboard settings than the local machine. Enabling the Foreign Keyboard Mapping setting is the equivalent to answering yes to dialog box and the Mini Remote Control program will not prompt you during connection process.
Performance Settings (see also Performance & CPU Utilization )
The Compression, Scan Blocks, & Delay between Scan Block updates settings are known as the Performance settings, and adjusting these settings can dramatically improve performance, or even CPU%, during a MRC connection.
Compression:
This setting lets you determine the amount of compression that is placed on each scan block before it is sent to the local machine. The Compression Level will affect over all performance more than any other setting. A larger number will cause the data to be compressed more, which is better for WAN / Dial-Up environments, but the trade off is that it takes more CPU time on the remote machine. If you are running the Mini Remote Control program in a 100mb LAN environment, then turning compression down or even off (Value of Zero) helps improve performance.
Scan Blocks:
The Scan Blocks (Scan Lines/Blocks) option and the Delay Between Scan Block Update work cooperatively to determine the most efficient method of screen transfer while conserving system resources. The number of Scan Blocks determines how many segments of the screen the program scans before it sends the data to the local machine. A smaller number increases the size of the block that has to be sent before the display is updated.
For Example:
| • | 2 = Ѕ of the screen is scanned, compressed, and sent to the local machine at a time (larger block size). |
| • | 32 = 1/32 of the screen is scanned, compressed, and sent (medium size block). |
| • | 64 = 1/64 of the screen is scanned, compressed, and sent (small block size). |
Delay between Scan Block updates:
Length of time in milliseconds that the Mini Remote Control program waits before it scans another block of the remote machine’s screen. This option helps the Mini Remote Client Agent on the remote machine share CPU time with other applications. A smaller number usually improves performance.
Please also note that the Mini Remote Client Agent does not use any CPU% while it is not hosting a Mini Remote Control session.
Port Number:
Specifies the TCP Port number on which the Mini Remote Control program communicates with the Client Agent Service on the remote machine. **The port number specified here must match the TCP port configured within the settings of the Client Agent Service on the remote machine.
Use Slow Link Optimization:
This is a new setting in version 5 of the MRC program. When enabled, the MRC application will perform additional processing in order to minimize the amount of data that must be sent across the wire. However, enabling this setting may require a little more horsepower on the local machine as well.
Set Screen Resolution To:
This option temporarily resets the remote machine’s display resolution to the selected screen size during the MRC connection. This is usually done for performance reasons when the remote machine is running a higher resolution, so you can reduce the amount of data sent over the pipe during the connection. Upon disconnection, the remote machine’s resolution is returned back its original screen resolution.
*Note: The Mini Remote Control program will ignore this option if it requires that the remote video adapter’s refresh rate must increase. Also, some machines / Operating System configurations also require a logoff and logon or even a reboot before it will reset the resolution back to the original state. The MRC software has absolutely no control over this behavior.
Desktop Effects Button:
These settings allow you to temporarily disable the wallpaper (excluding Active Desktop), font smoothing, & desktop pattern settings on a remote machine, as well as Shadowing, Fading, and Animation. It also may require a reboot of the remote machine before the original settings return back after disconnecting.
Default Button:
Resets all the settings in the Remote Options Tab back to default values. These default values are obtained from the default Host Properties dialog (EyeGlasses Icon in the MRC Toolbar, or View / Default Properties from the MRC main menu).
