There are main 3 steps in connecting to your work desktop from off campus. An important note is that step 1 must only be performed once, but must be done from on campus at your machine.

1. Setting your desktop to Allow remote connections
2. Setting up VPN on your home machine to authenticate with the BU firewall, instructions here
3. Running remote desktop and connecting to your work machine

Setting your desktop to Allow remote connections

In the windows menu in the lower right open the settings gear box.

In the windows settings menu, choose System and then in the left hand bar “Remote Desktop”

Click the buton for “Enable remote desktop” to On

Take note below where it says “Use this PC name to connect from your remote device”, the computer name below will be needed to connect to your machine from and should look something like “Lastname19.bu-ad.brandonu.ca”.

Running Remote desktop

To run remote desktop from your home machine, if you are on a windows machine it should already have the remote desktop program installed. If you are on any other device, the app store for your device should have a “MS Remote desktop” app by Mircosoft available to install, so install that first.

Either open the app, or on windows you can use the search bar in the lower left to search for and open “remote desktop”.

You will prompted to enter your computer name. Your computer name is the “PC Name” from earlier.

You should next be prompted for a username and password. Your username will be your normal username and password, but with “bu-ad\” inserted in front of your username, for example “bu-ad\helpdesk”.

After entering your username and password you should be connected into your work desktop.