How to default to unpinned Remote Desktop connection bar?
I just upgraded to a new computer (Windows 10). On my old one (also Windows 10) when I remote desktop (full screen, all monitors) to another computer, the connection bar would default to unpinned. It would appear if I hovered at the top of any screen, but otherwise was not visible.
Since my upgrade, my remote desktop session always comes up with the connection bar pinned. I have to manually unpin it every session. I tried changing the hide option, but that just makes it hidden all the time, which is definitely not desirable! How can I get that old behavior of defaulting to unpinned, but show on top of screen hover?
Option 1: Add pinconnectionbar to your .rdp file
Pinconnectionbar
This setting determines whether or not the connection bar should be pinned to the top of the remote session upon connection.
Syntax
pinconnectionbar:i:<value>
Values Values Explanation
0 The connection bar should not be pinned to the top of the remote session.
1 The connection bar should be pinned to the top of the remote session.https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff393714(v=ws.10).aspx
Option 2: Add Value to Registry
In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client
add a DWORD value PinConnectionBar with the same values as above. This option works the first time. However, the Remote Desktop Client deletes the key afterwards.
NOTE: In the 'current' (26 feb 2021) Windows 10 version (20H2) there (again) seems to be a 'bug' with the Remote Desktop Client, which as a result doesn't let it respect the RDP-setting pinconnectionbar:I:<value>
.
However, it's still possible to use the registry to unpin the connection bar for ALL RDP-sessions: goto HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client
and add the dword
value PinConnectionBar
(when it doesn't exist) and set the value to 0
to unpin all (future) remote desktop sessions.
As mentioned in another answer to this post, this key was expected to be removed after closing the session, but since the pinconnectionbar
option of the RDP-file no longer works, this option seems to stick in the registry.