save password in .rdp file

[Mike]

Hey guys,

I'm trying to have a autologon to a remote machine with Remote Desktop on
Windows CE 5.00. When I open Remote desktop and fill in the necessary
information (server:port, username, password, domain...) and click on save
as, Remote desktop saves the information in an .rdp file, all the information
except for the password. In result everytime I double click on the .rdp file
to connect to the remote machine, I am asked to type in the password, I want
to avoid having to do this by saving the password in the .rdp file.

I read on this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms861803.aspx
that Windows CE can read the password from the .rdp file but does not have
the ACLs to securely write passwords.

I also read on this link
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms861732.aspx, that "By making the
appropriate changes in "%_WINCEROOT%\Public\Rdp\Oak\Uit\cetsc", an OS
developer can change this default behavior so that the password is saved to
the device" I'm wondering what sort of changes are we talking about here, I
can't even find the directory mentionned above on my WinCE.

So my question would be, is there a way for me to encrypt the password and
write it manually in my .rdp file so that when I double click on it, remote
desktop will read the password from the file and not ask me to type it in
again.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Mike

[CEAssist]

Hi Mike,
By default, in Windows CE 5.0 RDP, users are prevented from saving a
password value in the system. To override this default behavior, you can
enable Autologon by setting the WBT_USERAUTOLOGON build variable before
building your image.

If you enable Autologon, you can encrypt the password value in your source
code, for example by using CryptProtectData function in wincrypt.h.

Note that you must include Crytography Services (SYSGEN_CRYPTO) in your OS
design (and perhaps also SYSGEN_CRYPTO_DSSDH).

WINCE500\public\rdp\oak\uit\cetsc is the folder where the source code for
the Remote Desktop client (CETSC) dialog box is located.

Also note that, in CE 6.0 R2, a "Save my Password" check box is included by
default in the Remote Desktop client (CETSC) (see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa912575.aspx ).

[Mike]

Thanks for the answer CEAssist, however I wanted to know where i could set
the value of WBT_USERAUTOLOGON, should this value be set in the registry or
in the .rdp file?

I didn't understand what you meant by "you can enable Autologon by setting
the WBT_USERAUTOLOGON build variable before building your image". Will I need
to reinstall windows CE on my machine?

Also I can't find this folder (WINCE500\public\rdp\oak\uit\cetsc) on my
system, I have a Windows fodler but no public folder and my cetsc.exe is in
the Windows directory.

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Mike

[CEAssist]

Hi Mike,
The variable WBT_USEAUTOLOGON is an environment variable that must be set to
1 before you build the operating system image in Platform Builder.
WBT_USEAUTOLOGON is a build flag, and more information about these types of
variables for PB 5.0 is at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms924886.aspx .

To enable Autologon on a device, you must use the PB development environment
on your desktop PC, before the OS image is built and downloaded to the
device. You have to have PB 5.0 installed on the desktop PC. The path under
\public is a path on your hard disk (desktop PC), not a path on the device.
The source code can be accessed in source files on your desktop PC with PB
installed, however, on the device only the .exe file should be available in
the built image.

[nellanayrb]

Where does one get the PB development environment? If I were to re-build the
operating system will I lose all other changes I have made to the device?
I'd like to save passwords for remote desktop to allow simple access for
users on a handheld, and don't know anything about compiling a windows CE
operating system.

[DaDaniel]

Hi!

We also need this feature urgently!
Is there any possibility to change it without recompiling the image?

greetings
Daniel