Can you launch Remote Desktop via URL?

You could use a custom URL protocol handler, but this would mean the URLs only worked on computers where you had set this up. I think you'd also need a program to handle taking the URL as remotedesktop://example.org and converting to /v:example.org - although a batch file could probably do this.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa767914(v=vs.85).aspx for more information.

For Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 there is now the Remote Desktop Client URI Scheme Support

Example: rdp://full%20address=s:mypc:3389&audiomode=i:2&disable%20themes=i:1

See here for the details, including the full list of query string parameters.

I originally said no, but if you have XP, there is something called the Remote Desktop Web Connection. I initially forgot there was a version for XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?DisplayLang=en&id=18145

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/284931