The Engineering Virtual Desktop (RDS) utilizes Microsoft Remote Desktop technology to provide your personal virtual session. This session requires a solid broadband connection for an ideal experience. Wireless (Wi-Fi) connections are known to lack the bandwidth required for the most demanding 3D software (NX, AutoCAD, Solidworks) to be delivered full-screen at high-resolution, which is the default experience.
Remote Desktop Protocol attempts to detect the quality of your internet connection and tune quality settings as appropriate. Sometimes this process does not negotiate ideal settings or an unstable connection can make this negotiation unreliable. Please review the below guide for instructions on how to tune your RDP connection when it is not performing consistently.
Trouble Staying Connected
If you are able to connect to the Engineering Virtual Desktop, but are having trouble staying connected, please review the Connection Experience Indicator, a tool that allows you to monitor the strength of your connection and will help you determine if your connection could be causing issues with your remote session.
As shown below, you will find the tool in the Notification Area, located by default at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. The tool appears as a circle that will either have a Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, or a Gauge.
Thumbs Up
This means that your connection is expected to have enough bandwidth to support the full remote experience. However, this can change based on network congestion and other intermittent factors, so please review this statistic periodically.
Thumbs Down
A poor connection has been detected by the program — low bandwidth or high latency may cause an undesirable remote experience, including lag, dropped connections (but NOT lost work, a dropped connection remains on the server for 6 hours), and/or low framerates. Please review the guides below this section for guidance on tuning your connection and using alternative .RDP files for low-bandwidth connections.
Gauge With Warning
This indicates that the application has detected a high latency connection. You may be able to continue using the Engineering Virtual Desktop, but as described in the previous section, you may experience intermittent issues with your session, and should consider the guidance below.
More Information
You can click on the icon in the Notification Area to display a notification with more detailed information about your connection:
The window can be made transparent by clicking anywhere inside the box. Clicking the icon in the bottom-right corner of the notification window will dismiss it back to the taskbar.
Identifying High Bandwidth Consumption
1. Built-in bandwidth-usage monitoring tools are available in both Mac and Windows. On Windows, right-click your taskbar and select Task Manager, or press Ctrl+Shift+Esc. In the Task Manager window, click More details, and select the Processes tab. Look through the processes, reviewing the Network column to identify any processes using large amounts of bandwidth. An example of such a process is shown below:
1b. If you are a Mac user, click the Spotlight icon in the upper-right corner of the menu bar, or press Command+Space bar. Search for Activity Monitor and click the Network tab. Look through the processes to identify any using large amounts of bandwidth. An example is shown below:
2. Network congestion may be coming from other sources within your home as well. Look for devices that may be consuming bandwidth such as other PCs and Smart TVs, especially video streaming devices. Turn these devices off or ask other users on your network to refrain from downloading or surfing the web while you work.
3. If you continue to have connection stability issues after following the above steps, you may also tune your graphical settings to conserve bandwidth.
If You're Connecting Using an RDP File
Right click your .rdp file and select edit. Navigate to the display tab. Uncheck Use all my monitors for the remote session (Note: This checkbox might not exist if you only have one monitor; ignore it). You should now be able to drag the size slider to select the resolution of your remote connection.
A smaller resolution will consume less bandwidth and likely improve the stability of your connection. We recommend starting with the smaller resolutions and slowly testing larger resolutions to see what your connection can handle.
Under the display configuration section, there is a section titled Colors. Click the color depth dropdown to select a color profile. For slower connections, it is recommended to use the High Color (16 bit) option.
If You're Connecting Using a Web Browser
It is possible to adjust the resolution of your remote session by resizing the browser window. A smaller window will consume less bandwidth and likely improve connection stability. Most operating systems allow window resizing by mousing over the corner of a window and clicking/dragging.
Incorrect Credentials
Be sure to use the correct credentials, ending in @egr.msu.edu. If you are able to sign in, but receive the following error, it is likely that you have provided your @msu.edu credentials, instead of the correct username@egr.msu.edu:
Additional Help
Please contact the DECS Support Office for further assistance, or for help following the instructions above.