How does a “virtual desktop” work?

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We have to use these virtual desktops at school to use certain programs and I do not understand how they work. Is there a secret computer stored somewhere deep in the depths of one of our school? How many people can access the virtual desktop at one time? I checked the IP of my computer vs the remote desktop and they’re different. Basically, this “computer-ception” is hurting my brain.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The basic premises of virtual desktop is “Virtual Machine”. At the basic level, you can create one in [VirtualBox](https://www.virtualbox.org/). (Example: [https://itsfoss.com/install-linux-in-virtualbox/](https://itsfoss.com/install-linux-in-virtualbox/))

Now, put this Virtual Machine somewhere else – on either a school own-server, or more commonly a cloud-based server by a third-party provider (eg: put it somewhere on Google) that you can remote in, and you have your virtual desktop.

As to how many people can access the virtual desktop: In properly configure version, that particular virtual desktop is tied to your school comptuer account. Otherwise it just exist as a file on that server/cloud and thus save processing power. (If you want to understand this concept: continue above experiment, but now create more virtual machine. Compare between activating only 1, vs activate 4 in total).

Or in details: just like a web server, many people can access the server, but they will receive their own copy of virtual desktop. Kind of like Reddit!

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