Remote desktop and PC names

I have a small mac I take everywhere around the house and I use it to connect to everything else. When I use Microsoft Remote Desktop to connect to Windows PCs or Virtual Machines, I find it difficult to understand to what I am connected to in that moment. Sometimes the desktops are not very recognizable

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I love to be able to connect to everything from my mac; I can connect to multiple desktops and then just swipe with three fingers on the trackpad left and right or use CTRL + left/right arrows to switch from machine to machine

In Microsoft Remote Desktop, the PC name would be on the top app bar, normally. The trouble in this case is that when the application window is maximized, the top bar is not visible and I have to hover on the top of the screen to make it visible

Eventually I realised the only portion that is always visible in a Windows desktop is the taskbar, so the PC name needs to go in there. Doing so is pretty simple

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  • Right click on the Windows taskbar
  • Go to “Toolbars” and then select “New toolbar…”
  • Navigate to “Network” and select you PC name
  • If you cannot find it, write in the search bar \\YOUR-PC-NAME or \%computername%\
  • Click on “Select Folder”
  • Suggestion: if you would like a more personalized message/name you can create a folder somewhere on your HDD with the name you want and select that

Now you should have the PC hostname in the taskbar as a toolbar

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