Change Remote Desktop Listening Port

By default Windows Remote Desktop listens for connection on port 3389. Two valid reasons for wanting to change this number are for security concerns and/or multiple RDP network configurations.

Why not use 3389?

Security Concern:
Using simple network ping sweeping software can pull your external IP up as one that has the default port 3389 open. Intruding into your network could be as easy as entering in the logon password.

RDP configurations:
Say you have three computers behind a firewalled router and you want all three to be accessible via RDP. This is only possible by changing the default port on at least two out of three of the machines.

Changing the port

Start >

Type regedit >

Locate and double-click the PortNumber subkey: 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber >

Choose Decimal as the Base >

Change the Value data

Connecting with new port number

To connect to this machine on a port other than the default requires a small change.

Since we're not using the default port of 3389 we have to tell the program what port to use by a :port# after the computer name.