Switch to full screen on Remote Desktop

Ever so often, the default rdp gets set with a certain size which effectively takes away the full screen mode for the session. My earlier approach was to disconnect from the RDP session, and use the options tab to select full screen or the /f mode in mstsc to reconnect in full screen mode again.

I just found that you dont need to disconnect and reconnect. You can switch back to full screen mode in your existing RDP session with the simple (ok, its 3 keys) keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-Alt-Break.

source: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/1da2cb6a-a016-4cc9-b802-0c3adc674507/

Back to blogging times after a few months. I feel I shouldnt keep waiting to write that nice big blog post, and should document all these points, however tiny they seem now.

Reclaim hard-disk space

A remote Windows server had run out of disk space on the primary logical partition of the hard-disk where the operating system was installed. I wanted to reclaim some of the disk space, since otherwise I couldn't even delete a file! I went looking around for files/folders which were huge and which could be moved without causing too much trouble.

I found some setup files under %windir%\Installer that I could remove.

Note:
1. The Installer folder is hidden. From Windows Explorer menu, Tools → Folder Options → 'View' tab, turn on option to 'Show hidden files, folders and drives' and turn off option to 'hide protected operating system files'. You might want to switch these settings back once you are done with this file move.
2. When you attempt to uninstall a program, these setup files are usually required. So, make sure you either do this temporarily, or if you intend to delete this, do so only for programs you do not wish to uninstall.
3. You can ignore the folders in the Installer folder with the guid names. They just have some files under them such as icons. Sort the folder by size to look at the setup files that take up the most space.
4. Right-click on the column headers on the right pane of the explorer. Click on 'More...' and select 'Subject'. The folder view will now show the name or product titles of the corresponding installer files. This should help identify the setup files instead of the alpha-numeric file names.