Redirect X from remote linux machine on your windows host.

When you use a remote linux machine from your own Windows Desktop machine using a putty connection, you can easily redirect X application on your desktop.

To do that, there is several steps:

1) You need to have a cygwin setup on your windows host, and follow the following instruction to setup all package required to run a X server.

2) Setup your putty connection to allow X11 forwarding.

To check if everything is OK, restart a connection and from linux prompt, check the value of “DISPLAY” (echo $DISPLAY). It should return something similar to:

localhost:13.0

3) To start your windows X11 server, create a shortcut file in your cygwin folder.

the target will be: C:\ cygwin\bin\run.exe /usr/bin/bash.exe -l -c /bin/startxwin.exe

And for its name, “StartX” is a good choice!

Double-click on that shortcut and check that you now have the icon in your Windows systray.

4) To run that server every time you start your window session, save a copy of that shortcut in:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

5) Final check, start xclock from your Linux prompt, the xclock windows will appear on your Windows Desktop !