OpenThinRDP turns an old laptop, a mini PC or a Raspberry Pi into a terminal for the Windows computer you already have: a desktop PC in the study, a virtual machine on Hyper-V or Proxmox, the PC at the office. You sign in and get your Windows desktop with sound, microphone, webcam and USB keys; nothing is kept on the terminal.
No domain, no server, no subscription. At the first start choose Workgroup and fill in two fields.
- Set up in two minutes
- It feels like a computer of your own
- From outside, with Tailscale
- Try it without touching the disk, keep it if you like it
- What you need to know
-
Download the ISO, write it to a USB stick (Rufus,
balenaEtcher or
dd) and start the old computer from it. - Choose Workgroup (no domain).
- Pick your PC from the list: OpenThinRDP finds the computers of your network with Remote Desktop on.
- Sign in with your Windows user. With a Microsoft account: its email address and password (the Windows Hello PIN is not accepted by Remote Desktop).
Remote Desktop must be on in Windows: Settings > System > Remote Desktop (Windows Pro, Enterprise or Education).
- Password remembered: at power on your desktop opens by itself. Kept in the TPM when the computer has one.
- Your PC switched off? It is switched on: OpenThinRDP learns its network card at the first sign-in and wakes it up with Wake-on-LAN, then connects as soon as Windows answers.
- More than one computer: the PC in the study and a virtual machine, chosen at sign-in.
- Bluetooth: headsets, keyboards and mice paired from the settings.
- A browser only if you want one: none is installed until you turn on a web page, then only the one you choose (Chromium, Firefox, Brave, Chrome or Edge), kept up to date.
Turn on Tailscale in the settings: the terminal shows a link, open it on your phone and sign in with your Tailscale account. From then on the laptop reaches your PC at home from anywhere, without opening ports on the router. Tailscale is free for personal use, and it is installed on the terminal only when you turn it on.
- The USB stick keeps your settings: started from a stick, OpenThinRDP makes room for them on the stick itself, as other live systems do. Updates, Wi-Fi and your settings stay from one start to the next.
- Install it alongside Windows: on a laptop that still has Windows, shrink the Windows partition (Disk Management > Shrink Volume) and choose Install alongside Windows: the boot menu offers both, nothing is erased.
- Or install it on the whole disk: an old laptop starts in a few seconds and keeps itself up to date.
- The Windows you connect to must accept Remote Desktop: Windows Home does not (Pro, Enterprise, Education and Windows Server do). A virtual machine usually already does.
- Wake-on-LAN works when the PC's network card and BIOS allow it, over a cable. A PC on Wi-Fi can rarely be woken.
- Your remembered password is sealed in the TPM when the terminal has one; on a computer without a TPM, or on a USB stick, it is kept on the device, readable by its administrator only. If someone else can take your stick, leave Remember password off.
- What only some people use (the browser, Tailscale, Bluetooth) is installed the first time you turn it on, so the terminal needs the Internet that first time.
- Chrome and Edge exist for PCs only; on a Raspberry Pi choose Chromium, Firefox or Brave.
More: Remote Desktop from Linux, and Windows Home, a Raspberry Pi as the terminal.
Questions and ideas: Discussions.
This page is docs/guides/home.md as published on GitHub, where the documentation, the releases and the discussions are.