Enable Aero in Remote Desktop

Enabling Aero Glass in Remote Desktop Connections

The Windows Vista Aero Glass user interface is well-known, however, it’s less commonly understood that this visual style can be utilized even when connecting via Remote Desktop.

Achieving this functionality requires specific configurations to be enabled on both the client and server machines.

Prerequisites for Aero over RDP

Before attempting to enable Aero Glass through Remote Desktop, ensure the following conditions are met:

Both the client and server systems must be running Windows Vista.
Aero must already be activated on the computer initiating the Remote Desktop connection.
The remote computer requires a minimum of 512MB of RAM and must be running either the Enterprise or Ultimate edition of Windows Vista.

Satisfying these requirements should allow the Aero interface to function correctly within the remote session.

A visual demonstration is planned; a screenshot will be added shortly to illustrate the effect.

Currently, it remains unclear whether Aero can be leveraged on a client machine to connect to a server that doesn't meet the hardware requirements for running Aero natively, specifically regarding the video card.

If you have experience with this scenario, please share your findings in the comments section.

This method is also anticipated to function when establishing a connection to a Windows Longhorn server, although this has not yet been verified through testing.