I use a work-supplied laptop for all job-related functions and I specifically do not have any work related stuff on my personal systems.

However, coding on a laptop…sucks.

Tiny keyboard, tiny screen, trackpad, etc, etc.

So I could use a docking station, plug the laptop in there and then have a real keyboard, mouse, and multiple monitors. But then, if I want to check personal emails, or do a little side project for home automation, I’d have to unplug everything and plug it back into my desktop.

Instead, I just stick my laptop on a shelf, powered on, and Remote Desktop into it from my personal desktop. That way, I have my monitors, keyboard, mouse, etc. exactly the way I want, and they can all be used seamlessly when connected to my laptop.

When the office standardized on Zoom, this worked perfectly.

But then they decided to switch to Teams.

Trouble in Paradise

Most of the time, Teams works fine. It’s definitely not my favorite app, but it does the job.

Except when sharing my screen.

Every time I do that, my screen will share, but then suddenly, my mouse starts resetting to a 0,0 position about every second. With the mouse jumping all over the place, it becomes literally impossible to control, and inevitably, I end up having to request someone else on the call to share their screen momentarily to break my share and restore mouse control.

A colleague recommended a little app called RegionToShare. That kind of worked, but not consistently, and it was a pain to always have to load that before sharing anyway.

The Solution

I’d done a little research months ago but hadn’t turned up anything. On a lark, I tried again last night and turned up a post on a Microsoft Support forum.

Turns out, this is a known issue in one of the Updates that happens for Windows 10. I’m not sure if it affects Win11 or not.

Press Win+R and type gpedit.msc to open the local policy editor

Drill down through these nodes:

• Local Computer Policy
• Computer Configuration
• Administrative templates
• Windows Components
• Remote Desktop Services
• Remote Desktop Session Host
• Remote Session Environment

Find the entry called:

Use WDDM Graphics display driver for Remote Desktop Connections

and set its value to DISABLED.

That’s it.