Transfering Files From Local Computer to Connected Remote Desktop Session

I'm a student living in a college hostel and the main part of pain is that my room is on 4th floor ( with no lifts in our hostel :P ). I'm use Remote Desktop to connect to my computer from any PC in the college ( connected via LAN ). I can control my system and copy text to the clipboard between my desktop and the computer at college, but I was not able to copy files before. One of the reasons I wanted to use Remote Desktop is to access files I forget to copy to my network drive before I leave my room. So how do I copy a file between the two computers?

For security reasons, copying files or folders between your remote computer and the computer you are using to connect is not enabled by default. If the local computer you are connecting from is a public terminal, you may not want to share the drive for fear of transmitting malware or viruses between the machines. Since you're using your own desktop, the security risk is much lower and the convenience of transferring files between the two machines far outweighs any potential hazards. I know Remote Desktop already saved me several times by copying files I forgot at hostel to my college system.

You can run Remote Desktop Connection from Start > Programs > Accessories > Remote Desktop Connection. You should see a small box to enter a computer IP address or hostname with a few buttons such as Connect, Cancel, Help and Options.

By default Remote Desktop Connection doesn’t map my local computer drives to the remote computer. You’ll need to click the Options button, go to Local Resources tab, click the More button at Local devices and Resource, and check Drives to map all your local drives to the server. Instead of mapping all drives, you can also map the drives that you want by expanding the drive category.

When you connect, you should get a warning asking you do you trust this remote connection because you’ve allowed the remote computer to access your local drives on your computer. After clicking Connect, open My Computer and you should see your local drives on the remote computer. Now you can start transferring files from your computer to the remote server WITHOUT installing FTP services or upload it to rapidshare to download later.

I also found out that you can also copy and paste files from local to remote desktop if you’ve enabled mapping of local drive resources. Let’s say I open a text file on my computer and I copied the content to the clipboard. I am able to paste the clipboard content to the remote computer that is connected via Remote Desktop Connection!