Accessing and controlling a remote desktop of a remote computing system using a multi-touch display of a local computing system. The remote desktop is displayed on the multi-touch display. Upon detecting a user contact with the multi-touch display when the display is not engaged as a trackpad, the multi-touch display is engaged as a trackpad; and the user contact is assigned as a cursor pointer for controlling the multi-touch display as a trackpad. In accordance with some embodiments described herein, left and right pointer controls (e.g., left mouse button and right mouse button) controls may be emulated also. This remote desktop technique allows multi-touch displays to be used to manipulate remote desktops, even for those that do not support multi-touch semantics, interaction techniques, or metaphors.