Getting Started with Your Infosaic Cloud Desktop

Looking for VPS or web hosting instead? All three guides are now on one page — browse the Infosaic guides.

Your cloud desktop is a real Windows machine running in a data centre. It is always on, you reach it from anything — a PC, a Mac, a tablet, a phone, a Chromebook — and whatever you leave open stays open.

There are two ways in. Browser access needs nothing installed and works anywhere. RDP takes one free app and adds sound, your own printer, your own files, USB drives and a second monitor. Most people set up both and use whichever suits the moment.

Start here

• Your first 10 minutes with your cloud desktop
  Five steps from signing in to moving your first file.
• Where to find your login details and connection address
  Why there are two logins, and which box wants which.
• Browser access or RDP: which should you use?
  A straight comparison, so you can pick and move on.

Getting in from a web browser

Nothing to install, works on a borrowed laptop, and it is the fallback when a network blocks everything else.

• How to open your cloud desktop in a web browser
  The whole thing, from control panel to desktop.
• The hidden menu: press Ctrl+Alt+Shift
  The one shortcut worth memorising.
• How to copy and paste between your computer and your desktop
  Why Ctrl+V does nothing, and the box that fixes it.
• Uploading and downloading files
  Moving files without an RDP client.
• Typing in another language
  When the keyboard produces the wrong characters.
• Sending Ctrl+Alt+Del and other keys your browser blocks
  The on-screen keyboard, and what it is for.
• Zoom and scaling: making the session readable
  Why browser zoom is the wrong fix.
• Using your desktop from a phone or tablet browser
  Touch gestures, and when to switch to the app.
• What browser access cannot do
  No sound, no local printer, no drives, one screen.
• Browser session problems: a checklist
  Work down it in order and you will find the cause.

Connecting by RDP, device by device

One free app, set up once. This is how most people work day to day.

• What you need to connect by RDP
  The three things, and where to find them.
• Windows
  Already installed. Nothing to download.
• Mac
  Free Windows App from the Mac App Store.
• iPhone and iPad
  An iPad with a keyboard is genuinely comfortable.
• Android
  Phone or tablet, from Google Play.
• Chromebook
  Two routes, depending on whether you have the Play Store.
• Linux
  Remmina or xfreerdp, with full redirection.
• Save your settings and make a .rdp shortcut
  Stop re-ticking the same boxes every morning.
• Disconnect or sign out?
  What actually happens to your open programs.
• RDP will not connect: how to fix it
  Usually the network, not your account.

What RDP adds

Each of these is a checkbox you tick once, while disconnected.

• Copy and paste over RDP
  Ordinary Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, both directions.
• Copy files to and from your own computer
  Your folders appear inside Windows.
• Use a USB drive
  Storage yes; scanners and dongles, mostly no.
• Print to your own printer
  The page comes out where you are sitting.
• Print to PDF and get the file
  The route that works from every device.
• Sound and microphone
  Two separate switches, both off by default.
• Use two monitors
  A real multi-monitor desktop, not a stretched window.
• Tiny text on a 4K screen
  High-DPI scaling, explained.
• Working on a slow connection
  The settings that genuinely help.

Your control panel and account

• A tour of your control panel
  What every section is actually for.
• How to open a support request
  What to include so it is solved on the first reply.
• How to restart your cloud desktop
  And the gentler things to try first.
• Billing: invoices and your card
  Where they live, and updating the card before it expires.

Working in Windows

• Installing software
  It is a real Windows machine. Install what you need.
• Microsoft Office
  Installing it, and the licensing question to ask first.
• Where to save your files
  And the three places files go missing from.
• Check disk space and free it up
  A full disk breaks things badly rather than slowly.
• Set the time zone
  The clock is set to where the machine is, not where you are.
• Windows updates
  Active hours, so it never restarts mid-afternoon.

Running a VPS or a website

• What is a VPS, and how is it different?
  A desktop is where you work. A server is where things run.
• How to add a website to IIS
  Bindings, host names and DNS, in order.
• How to add an SSL certificate in IIS
  Getting the padlock, and keeping it.
• VPS basics: firewall, passwords, backups
  Half an hour that prevents most trouble.

The five things worth knowing on day one

1. There are two logins. The control panel manages the account; Windows signs you in to the desktop. Most first-day problems are one typed into the other.
2. Closing the window does not shut anything down. You disconnect; the desktop keeps running with everything open.
3. Redirection settings are read when a session starts. Tick printers, drives and sound before you connect, then save.
4. Save your work on the cloud desktop, not on a redirected drive. That is the single most common way a file goes missing.
5. If something will not connect, try the other route. Whichever one works tells you — and us — almost everything.