I want to use Remote Desktop to control a PC which is running Windows 7 Home Basic (we’ll call this PC ‘the host’).  Officially, this isn’t possible.  Here’s my unofficial idea.

  1. First, go to the host and enable the Telnet service on the host.  (Yes, it is included with Win 7 HB.)
  2. Also at the host, enable Remote Assistance.
  3. Still at the host, enable file sharing of C:\temp. (Create it, if the folder doesn't exist.)
  4. At the client, telnet to the host and login.  Then enter "msra /saveasfile c:\temp\file1 yaddayadda" and logout.
  5. At the client, browse to the host's shared \temp folder, and open the file1.msrcincident file.  The Remote Desktop client will start and connect to the client.

I got this far, but the prompt to accept the connection never showed up on the host.  Assuming I get that debugged, it may be necessary to install PTFB on the host, to automatically click OK on the do-you-want-to-accept-the-connection prompt.

Once everything is set up, you could put the msra command line as a scheduled task on the host, and run it every day.