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.

New here? Start with your first 10 minutes. It gets you connected and working, and takes about as long as it says. Everything else on this page is here for when you need it.

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 desktopFive steps from signing in to moving your first file.
• Where to find your login details and connection addressWhy 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

A person opening a laptop and signing in to a cloud desktop through 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 browserThe whole thing, from control panel to desktop.
• The hidden menu: press Ctrl+Alt+ShiftThe one shortcut worth memorising.
• How to copy and paste between your computer and your desktopWhy Ctrl+V does nothing, and the box that fixes it.
• Uploading and downloading filesMoving files without an RDP client.
• Typing in another languageWhen the keyboard produces the wrong characters.
• Sending Ctrl+Alt+Del and other keys your browser blocksThe on-screen keyboard, and what it is for.
• Zoom and scaling: making the session readableWhy browser zoom is the wrong fix.
• Using your desktop from a phone or tablet browserTouch gestures, and when to switch to the app.
• What browser access cannot doNo sound, no local printer, no drives, one screen.
• Browser session problems: a checklistWork down it in order and you will find the cause.

Connecting by RDP, device by device

A person checking connection details before setting up a remote desktop client

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

• What you need to connect by RDPThe three things, and where to find them.
• WindowsAlready installed. Nothing to download.
• MacFree Windows App from the Mac App Store.
• iPhone and iPadAn iPad with a keyboard is genuinely comfortable.
• AndroidPhone or tablet, from Google Play.
• ChromebookTwo routes, depending on whether you have the Play Store.
• LinuxRemmina or xfreerdp, with full redirection.
• Save your settings and make a .rdp shortcutStop 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 itUsually the network, not your account.

What RDP adds

A man working at a dual-monitor desk, turning between two screens

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

• Copy and paste over RDPOrdinary Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, both directions.
• Copy files to and from your own computerYour folders appear inside Windows.
• Use a USB driveStorage yes; scanners and dongles, mostly no.
• Print to your own printerThe page comes out where you are sitting.
• Print to PDF and get the fileThe route that works from every device.
• Sound and microphoneTwo separate switches, both off by default.
• Use two monitorsA real multi-monitor desktop, not a stretched window.
• Tiny text on a 4K screenHigh-DPI scaling, explained.
• Working on a slow connectionThe settings that genuinely help.

Your control panel and account

A woman at a tidy desk looking up from her laptop with an organised, capable smile

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

Working in Windows

• Installing softwareIt is a real Windows machine. Install what you need.
• Microsoft OfficeInstalling it, and the licensing question to ask first.
• Where to save your filesAnd the three places files go missing from.
• Check disk space and free it upA full disk breaks things badly rather than slowly.
• Set the time zoneThe clock is set to where the machine is, not where you are.
• Windows updatesActive hours, so it never restarts mid-afternoon.

Running a VPS or a website

A man beside a server rack with cool blue indicator lights, laptop open on a trolley

• 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 IISBindings, host names and DNS, in order.
• How to add an SSL certificate in IISGetting the padlock, and keeping it.
• VPS basics: firewall, passwords, backupsHalf an hour that prevents most trouble.

The five things worth knowing on day one

1. There are two loginsThe 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 downYou disconnect; the desktop keeps running with everything open.
3. Redirection settings are read when a session startsTick 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 routeWhichever one works tells you - and us - almost everything.