Hi Philip,
First of all, let us clarify your scenario. Suppose, you have two machines: machineA and machineB. machineB is accessible from machineA via Remote Desktop, the virtual machine client or another similar application which simply shows the remote (or virtual) machine's screen as an image within a window. There are two possible scenarios:
1. TestComplete is installed on machineA. If so, you are trying to record and play back tests recorded with a window which displays an image. Obviously, TestComplete cannot recognize the remote (virtual) machine's windows in the image, and the test will break if the screen resolution changes because the script relies on coordinates.
2. TestComplete is installed on machineB. If so, you are using the correct approach, and TestComplete will be able to recognize window controls on the remote (virtual) machine. Please note that some controls are not window controls (for example, a tree view can be simply an image drawn inside a window), and in such cases, TestComplete records tests via coordinates relative to the top left corner of the window which contains the control. Note that these coordinates are not "global" screen coordinates, and therefore, such tests are more stable than those created in scenario #1.
If you are using the second approach and face some recognition problems when you launch the same script with the same version of the tested application and TestComplete on another machine, please zip your entire project suite folder along with the log of the failed test execution and send us the archive via our Contact Support form (http://www.automatedqa.com/support/message). Make sure that messages in your log correspond to the latest version of your tests.
