What Is Remote Desktop?

Remote desktop is technology that lets you see and control the screen of one computer from another device, over a network, as if you were sitting in front of it. Your keyboard and mouse input travels to the remote machine; its screen comes back to you as a live video stream.

The remote machine does the actual work. Your local device is only a window — which is why an older laptop can comfortably drive a powerful workstation on the other side.

What a session actually does

A remote desktop session is four things happening continuously:

1. Screen capture and encoding. The remote machine grabs its display output and compresses it, usually sending only the regions that changed.
2. Transport. The compressed stream travels to your device over the network.
3. Input injection. Your keystrokes and mouse movements are sent back and replayed on the remote machine at the OS level.
4. Side channels. File transfer, clipboard sync, audio, and printing typically run alongside the video stream as separate channels.

Latency is what makes a session feel good or bad. Anything under roughly 30 ms generally feels immediate; past 100 ms, typing starts to feel disconnected from what you see on screen.

How it differs from things people confuse it with

Remote desktop is not a VPN. A VPN puts your device onto a remote network, so you can reach file shares and internal services — but your own machine still does the computing. Remote desktop puts you onto a remote machine. The two solve different problems and are often used together, though a good remote desktop tool will not require a VPN to establish a connection.

Remote desktop is not screen sharing. Screen sharing in a meeting tool is usually view-only, one-to-many, and tied to a call. Remote desktop is interactive control, usually one-to-one, and works whether or not anyone is at the other end.

Remote desktop is not remote management. Remote management (RMM) is about inventory, patching, and scripted actions across a fleet — often without a visible session at all. Remote desktop is the interactive fallback when you need to actually look at the machine.

Attended vs unattended access

This distinction shapes how you deploy any remote desktop tool:

• Attended — someone is physically present at the remote machine and approves the session. This is the model for helping a customer or a colleague.
• Unattended — the remote machine accepts connections without anyone there, authenticated by a stored credential. This is the model for servers, kiosks, and your own office desktop.

Unattended access is more useful and more dangerous. It is where access control, strong credentials, and session logging stop being optional.

Where WorksLink fits

WorksLink is remote desktop software for Windows and macOS, aimed at both individual users and teams. Sessions are protected with SSL/TLS and AES 256-bit encryption, support dual passwords, and connect without requiring a VPN. Connection and file transfer activity is logged, and sessions can be recorded to video so remote work is auditable after the fact.

If you are evaluating options, the security checklist covers what to verify before you roll a tool out to a team.