Is it possible to use GPO's to your advantage with RDP over HTTP?

I'll start out by saying that I am an extremely basic "n00b" to Servers. It was a miracle that I could even get some the things to work. Realize that this is a Server 2003 on my home network so nothing is really at stake here. I use IIS in conjunction with TSWEB for remote administration and somewhat of a RDP over HTTP as well as VPN. My upload speed - to put it blunty - just sucks. So the question:

Is it advisable to use policy restrictions over my own account to minimize the amount of things to transfer over the web. Will the server respond faster over the web if it doesn't have to display some of the unnecessary items in the start menu? I would also like to impose this policy my desktop workstation so I can access the resources there.

So, true or false; Minimizing the amount of things showing on the desktop could speed up remote desktop connection over the web.

From serverfault $pageUsers[$entry.posts[0].author].name

• It Depends ^TM

  The way to speed up RDP access is to lower the connection resolution, lower the colour depth (15 bit should be fine), turn on bitmap caching, turn off desktop wallpapers, font smoothing, animations, and "Show contents of window while dragging".

  All of these reduce the amount of stuff that needs to be sent over RDP. Removing desktop icons and start menu height/items is not likely to make any noticeable difference.

  I've used RDP to access servers in the Philippines that are running on a 56k dialup connection, and whilst not great, they were certainly usable.

  Evan Anderson : Disabling bitmap caching to improve performance? I thought the point of the bitmap cache was to improve performance...

  Farseeker : Baahhhh, my mistake. I'll fix it up
  From Farseeker

• As Farseeker has indicated, turn off everything you don't need. One of the items most often overlooked is sound. I recall discussing this in a Citrix course way back and was told that even a simple beep could generate over 1MB of traffic, although I've never bothered to verify that.

  Something to consider when RDP is performing particularly slowly (slow or congested link perhaps) is that only changes in the image need to be transferred. It makes sense therefore that using the smallest application window that gets the job done should be best for performance. This may not always be practical or desirable for the users but is sure worth considering for remote administration.

  From John Gardeniers