Remote Desktop is disabled by default in Windows 7 or Vista, but it’s easy enough to turn it back on. If you need to access your Vista PC from another box, it’s an essential thing to turn on.

Important note: Remote desktop is only included in the Professional, Business, or Ultimate versions of Windows. Home editions do not have remote desktop.

To get to the configuration page, you can either right-click the Computer icon and choose properties, or you can type in system into the start menu search box, and then find the entry for System.

Now you’ll want to click the Remote Settings link on the left hand side:

Now you can finally turn it on:

To connect from another Vista / Win7 PC on the same network, click the bottom radio button. If you need to connect from an XP/2k machine, click the “Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop” radio button.

Don’t worry about setting up firewall rules, Vista or Windows 7 does that for you automatically.

Note: This should work for both Windows 7 and Vista.