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HOWTO: Copy & Paste between Local and Remote Desktop

This HowTo covers how to copy and paste the files/text/graphics (Clipboard) content between remote desktop session and local computer in Windows XP.

Follow the following instruction in both local and remote computers.

Go to Start->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services. Enable and start the following services in the order shown below:

1. Network DDE DSDM 2. Network DDE 3. ClipBook

If you want to see the clipboard action in live:

You can go to Start->Run and type clipbrd and click OK to run clip board viewer. You will be shown current clipboard objects in this viewer.

Now you can use standard copy/paste menu options of the applications in both the computers to exchange the data.

40 Comments

  1. Great tip! Thank you very much! I’ve been dealing with this problem since weeks!! THANKS from ARGENTINA!

  2. hi there, just came across this site when doing a search on the subject.
    when connected to a 2003 terminal server i am able to copy/paste files (word documents) between the local desktop and the terminal desktop.
    when remotely connecting to another XP machine on the same network, i am not able to achieve that ability. if i try to manually open clipbrd on the remote session, i get an error stating that the clipbook service cannot start on a terminal server session.

    is anyone else able to copy and paste entire files between xp -> xp sessions ?

  3. THANKS SO MUCH! This was bugging me for the longest time.

  4. Thank you so much.. This helped me a lot

  5. have been searching for this for a long time.. thanks a lot for sucha useful tip

  6. Hi there, i hope this is such a wonterfull tip which you cannot find in many places and most people dont know including me. But unfortunately its not working for me. My local machine is Windows XP and Remote client is Windows 2003 standard. I have enabled all the services whatever you mentioned above.

    Anything else i should do, to acheive this functionality. Please help.

  7. I tried this great trick that I have been wanting to do for oh so long, but I suspect my systems are just not up to date enough! I have all the services and started them in the required order, but get this message: ClipBook Viewer – The Clipbook service is not available from a Terminal Server remote session. My workstation is Windows 2000 Pro and the remote system is Windows 2000 Server. Nice try! Thanks for the tip!

  8. Thank you so much

  9. Thank you very much indeed

  10. hi

    still not able to copy & paste please help me

  11. Thanks buddy!

  12. Not sure if this info is outdated or not but none of these three services were running on my client or server and starting them did not help.

    What I did find that helped: to fix a copy/paste funcation no longer working on a remote desk toptop connection, go to the remote desktop server, task manager – kill “rdpclip.exe” and then restart it by clicking start->run and typing rdpclip.exe

    copy/paste started working again good as usual after this. No need to run any of these services.

    • Gordo, good suggestion – it worked!

        • Jigar
        • Posted November 2, 2009 at 11:41 am
        • Permalink

        Thanks a ton,
        The first information didn’t help but your solution worked.

  13. Gordo,
    Your trick worked. Thanks a lot. I was having this problem for a long time. ….

    GG

  14. very good,thanks

  15. Hey great info it worked for me… thanks so much!!!

  16. Start all three Services, But Still I am not able to copy and paste Between Local and Remote Machine.

  17. Hi friend, hope this could help u.

    http://www.jakeludington.com/ask_jake/20051218_copying_files_with_remote_desktop.html

  18. download
    http://download.microsoft.com/download/win2000platform/rdpclip/1.0/NT5/EN-US/rdpclip_hotfix.exe
    and exctact in, do not try to install. Perform manual install in a way describer in misrocoft support in Article ID : 244732.
    As far as I checked it works fine on windows 2000 server and windows 2003 server, in combination with first solutin dascribed here

  19. TO do this the best way is …

    1. GO to Start->All Programs->Accessories-> Communications-> Remote Desktop Connection -> Options -> Local Resources -> check the DISK DRIVES option and connect to the remote PC the copy paste work automaticaly…

  20. Hey Nice trick… thanks a lot for sharing this information

    Sourabh

  21. Thank you very much!!!

  22. Waoooooo. Such a great help. Thanks Chinmay.

  23. Hey,

    Thanks a lot……it is working fine…
    http://download.microsoft.com/download/win2000platform/rdpclip/1.0/NT5/EN-US/rdpclip_hotfix.exe

    Keep Posting…..

    Bye.
    Your’s
    Balazee Chilla

  24. Thank you Chinmay!!

  25. Thanks for the rdpclip.exe tip, Gordo! I also did not have to turn on any of the services mentioned in the original post (they’re all disabled, maybe for security reasons?).

    Anyway, when I Remote Desktop from my Win2003 machine to a vmware running Win2003, copy&paste between the two would sometimes just stop working. After running rdpclip.exe on the remote machine (it wasn’t running before), copy&paste between the two machines started working again.

  26. Cheers for the advice, Chinmay – that worked perfectly!

  27. Thanks, solved my problem.

  28. Gordo, thanks for the solution. it is working now for me.

  29. I did all the above tricks but i am not able to perform copy\paste operation. my laptop & pc in different domains, but i am able to connect my pc through mstsc. in this case how to copy files? plz help me

    thanks
    vision2020

  30. Hey,

    I’ve performed all the options which you guys mentioned, but no result. I am unable to copy the text/file from remote desktop to my local system. please help me..

    what the hell the problem is , why its not able to copy from remote desktop to local system, frustrated!

  31. Hallowed is the Gordo!
    Thanks Godro, I googled a looong time, try almost everything, but you tip is the only working solution!

  32. Thanks Chinmay!

  33. Thank you, this really helped me. This was an extremely irritating problem.

  34. THANKS Chinmay Trivedi
    it works for me

  35. I did the all, check the options and realized it works when I’m in full screen. Maybe beacause the ‘full mode only’ is activated for ‘key combination’ in Remote Desktop options ?
    Anyway, it works now! Thanks

  36. It works fine for me, tnanks!

    For the German users: “Clipbook” is “Ablagemappe” in the German interface.

  37. Great Help. Thank you very much

  38. I am unable copy paste after restart the services. Can so one help me.


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