107

Is it possible to copy and paste inside a Remote Desktop Connection session?

Peter Mortensen
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leora
  • 6,193

9 Answers9

182

Even when you have the "Clipboard" option enabled, you may still have problems!

If that's the case, use Task Manager to kill and restart the rdpclip.exe process on local and remote machines.

More details on this blog post …

The only way I really knew to fix the clipboard transfer was to close my session and restart it. That meant closing the tools I was using like Visual Studio, Management Studio and the other ancillary processes I have running as I work and then restarting all of it just to restore the clipboard. But today I found a good link on the Terminal Services Blog explaining that what is really happening. The clipboard viewer chain is somehow becoming unresponsive on the local or remote system and events on the clipboards are not being relayed between systems. It is not necessarily a lock being put in place but some sort of failed data transmission. It then goes on to explain the 2 steps you can take to restore the clipboard without restarting your session.

Use Task Manager to kill the rdpclip.exe process
Run rdpclip.exe to restart it

… and a pretty ridculous "explanation" from Microsoft.

Summary

If you have a shared clipboard problem, see if the following troubleshooting guide helps:

+--------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------------+
| Symptom                  | Possible Cause          | Possible Solution            |
+--------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------------+
| Remote-to-local copy and | RDPCLIP is not in the   | Kill and restart RDPCLIP.    |
| paste broken.            | clipboard viewer chain. |                              |
+--------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------------+
| Local-to-remote copy and | TS client is not in the | Close the TS client and      |
| paste broken.            | clipboard viewer chain. | reconnect to the session.    |
+--------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------------+
| RDPCLIP or the TS client | There is a loop in the  | Kill and restart RDPCLIP.    |
| is using excessive CPU.  | local or remote         | If this does not fix the     |
|                          | clipboard viewer chain. | problem, close the TS client |
|                          |                         | and reconnect to the session.|
+--------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------------+
Community
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Roddy
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53

Assuming you're talking about Windows Remote Desktop Connection — before you hit Connect, click Options to expand the RDP connection window.

  • Click the Local Resources tab. Under Local devices and resources, click More.

  • In the new window, click Drives. Click OK to close.

  • Go back to General tab and click Save to save the settings for next time.

Barring any weird settings on the server side, you should be good to go.

Screenshot of invoking the options in the connection dialog for Remote Desktop Connection

Peter Mortensen
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Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
  • 113,841
7

I struggled with this one... until I realized rdpclip.exe was a program running on the RDP session machine and not my local machine.

Once on the right machine, killing and restarting fixed it for me.

Ben N
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David
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4

Note that if you're copy-pasting files, drag and drop might not work, you need to use Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V.

Matthew Williams
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jrouquie
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2

Try pasting to the Desktop of the RDP machine rather than into Windows Explorer.

Maybe this was due to the particular folder in Explorer requiring Administrator permissions, and pasting doesn't appear to pop up the permission elevation dialog. Either way, this workaround did the trick for me.

Dunc
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2

I never managed to get it to work. So I open a Google Docs document, open two browsers in the remote and local machine, and copy'n paste texts using it. Stupid solution, but works.

neves
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2

if you are SuperUser (Adminisitrator) on the Remote Computer do the followings;

  1. Click Start
  2. Administrative Tools
  3. Terminal Services
  4. Terminal Services Configuration
  5. Double click RDP-Tcp connection under Connections
  6. Click Client Settings
  7. Uncheck Clipboard under Redirection (if it is checked that means it is disabled)

This may solve your problem which solved mine.

washaq
  • 29
1

Yes, copying and pasting is possible. If you're using Windows 10 to remote into the other machine, ensure you are using the app titled "Remote Desktop Connection". Windows 10 apparently ships with 2 separate RDP apps:

  1. "Remote Desktop" - a newer, shinier more "visual" version
  2. "Remote Desktop Connection" - the original, classic-style you saw in older versions of windows

I never could get any of the other answers to work for copying local / pasting remotely using the newer RDP app. The "Paste" option remained grayed out on the remote machine. But once I realized there were two separate RDP apps on Windows 10, and I tried using the other app (which turned out to be the classic version)... I was able to do so successfully without jumping through any hoops. It just worked.

EF0
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1

Another option is that is turned off in your group policies. Open gpedit and check it:

Group policies

neves
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