MS remote desktop for MAC: does it work?

[Goggle]

Hi,

Is anyone using Microsoft Remote Desktop? I was never able to get it to work. Always get a message saying my remote pc can nit be found. VPN connection is running fine. It's not a problem with the office setup. I can connect fin on a pc.

Any setting I might be missing? I seem to see lots of post on the web about various issues. Doest it even work???

[SardatheSage]

Originally Posted by Goggle

Hi,

Is anyone using Microsoft Remote Desktop? I was never able to get it to work. Always get a message saying my remote pc can nit be found. VPN connection is running fine. It's not a problem with the office setup. I can connect fin on a pc.

Any setting I might be missing? I seem to see lots of post on the web about various issues. Doest it even work???

Yes it works. Are you sure you enabled the feature on your Windows PC? Do you know how to check? You might have the firewall turned on on your PC at work as well.

What version of Windows are you running at work?

[GGJstudios]

I use TeamViewer, which works with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Ubuntu, iPhone, iPad, etc. It's very secure and quite simple to set up and use.... and it's free.

[samh]

Originally Posted by Goggle

Hi,

Is anyone using Microsoft Remote Desktop? I was never able to get it to work. Always get a message saying my remote pc can nit be found. VPN connection is running fine. It's not a problem with the office setup. I can connect fin on a pc.

Any setting I might be missing? I seem to see lots of post on the web about various issues. Doest it even work???

You have to make sure that Remote Desktop is turned on in the settings on the machine you're trying to remote into. If you're running over the VPN, you shouldn't need any additional port forwarding (I think).

Edit: I just saw that you are able to get on from a PC. How strange. I haven't had a single problem with Remote Desktop.

[Supa_Fly]

Originally Posted by Goggle

Hi,

Is anyone using Microsoft Remote Desktop? I was never able to get it to work. Always get a message saying my remote pc can nit be found. VPN connection is running fine. It's not a problem with the office setup. I can connect fin on a pc.

Any setting I might be missing? I seem to see lots of post on the web about various issues. Doest it even work???

RDP for Mac works perfectly! It ships by default with Office 2011 for Mac Enterprise.

Some things to consider:
WinXP/ME/Vista/7 must ALL have the account enabled for RDP (the same one you'll use the RDP app to connect with.

If behind a LAN based firewall then VPN must either be installed or enabled as a network connection (CISCO IPSec is common).

I use this to connect to WinXP, Win7 (mine), and Win2008 servers with EASE!!

[Goggle]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I doubt there is anything wrong with the office setup: I'm staring at the office laptop I have at home and I'm connected to my w7 desktop. VPN in running on the macmini. It's just the remote desktop portion. Error= THE MAC CANNOT CONNECT TO THE WINDOWS BASED COMPUTER.

I reinstalled remote desktop several time version 2.1.1. I'm running 10.6.8.

Question really is: since I can connect with a PC, should mg IT know that I'm attempting to connect with a Mac? Should he need to make adjustments?

[eljanitor]

Are you trying to use it at your work on their network? Or are you trying to use it on your own personal network? It works just fine as long as all the settings are right, including making sure the PC you want to connect to doesn't have any firewalls turned on.

[samh]

Originally Posted by Goggle

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I doubt there is anything wrong with the office setup: I'm staring at the office laptop I have at home and I'm connected to my w7 desktop. VPN in running on the macmini. It's just the remote desktop portion. Error= THE MAC CANNOT CONNECT TO THE WINDOWS BASED COMPUTER.

I reinstalled remote desktop several time version 2.1.1. I'm running 10.6.8.

Question really is: since I can connect with a PC, should mg IT know that I'm attempting to connect with a Mac? Should he need to make adjustments?

You shouldn't need to do any additional setup to use the Mac client. Here are a few questions...

1 - Have you tried connecting with the Remote Desktop Client while on the same LAN?

2 - Can you access any resources on your network through the VPN? Could be a VPN issue.

[Goggle]

Originally Posted by samh

You shouldn't need to do any additional setup to use the Mac client. Here are a few questions...

1 - Have you tried connecting with the Remote Desktop Client while on the same LAN?

2 - Can you access any resources on your network through the VPN? Could be a VPN issue.

1-I can't. I'm at home with the MAC MINI and I'm trying to connect to the office

2-There is no VPN issue. I'm connected. I see the the SEND/RECEIVE bar moving back and forth.

I'm starting at my other HP laptop and I'm connected to the office as we speak. I go on the mac mini, click OK for the Remote Desktop and BAM!!! CANT CONNECT. Sooo frustrtating.

Originally Posted by eljanitor

Are you trying to use it at your work on their network? Or are you trying to use it on your own personal network? It works just fine as long as all the settings are right, including making sure the PC you want to connect to doesn't have any firewalls turned on.

I'm at home on my personal network, and I have a VPN going to the office. There is no firewall blocking anything at the office because it works fine with my HP laptop at home....Unless somehow the PC at works knows that I am using a MAC and something else should be done???

So there are absolutely no settings on my MAC MINI that could prevent me from using a Remote Desktop application (outbound)????? Again, the PC at the office can be accessed using a different laptop from home,so it's not a firewall issue.

There must be something I need to enable on the MAC to allow an outbound connection to the office. No:??

[eljanitor]

Here's the Microsoft help pages for remote desktop for Mac. if anyone would know its them. PC's on a separate domain can be a royal pain to connect to at times through a Mac. I don't know why a PC would connect and your mac wouldn't.

http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/rdc/

[AGVirt]

Until you get your RDP connection sorted out, you can also try connecting using at Ericom AccessNow, a pure HTML5 RDP client that enables Mac and other remote users to connect to any RDP host, including Terminal Server (RDS Session Host), physical desktops or VDI virtual desktops – and run their applications and desktops in a browser.

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Ericom‘s AccessNow does not require Java, Flash, Silverlight, ActiveX, or any other underlying technology to be installed on end-user devices – an HTML5 browser is all that is required.

For more info, and to download the beta, visit:
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[sriver]

I have the exact problem, no problem with PC, but the remote desktop for Mac just doesn't work!!! Pain in the ass.

RDC for Mac's version is 2.1.1

----------

Originally Posted by sriver

I have the exact problem, no problem with PC, but the remote desktop for Mac just doesn't work!!! Pain in the ass.

RDC for Mac's version is 2.1.1

Sorry my bad, it works, I got wrong IP address

[Tinmania]

If this is another work PC related issue are you sure the VPN is not using MAC ID as verification well?

I had to get approval for, and then have added by corp IT, both the WiFi and Ethernet MAC IDs from my macs in order to use the VPN with them (and, yes, I use RDP).



Michael

[MaccaOz]

I have RDC working just fine over a VPN. No real special setup required just make sure you can ping it. If using connect by name then make sure you have modified your hosts file so your machine can resolve the name correctly. If your not sure try to do a RDC via IP Address and see if it comes up then.

[kayut]

Hi,

I have exactly the same problem.

VPN connection:
No problem at all from windows 7
No problem at all from Mac (Mountain Lion)

RDP connection:
No problem at all from windows 7
Can not connect from Mac (Mountain Lion)

I use Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac version 2.1.1(110309) on my MacBook Pro.

Is there any alternative software for MS RDP Client?

Thanks

[neal5]

I have issues with RDC as well.

I run 10.8.2 with RDC 2.1.1 Client.

I can connect just fine to all 4 of our 2003 Servers.
However I can NOT connect to any of the 2008 Servers.

I googled and tried, I don't know how to fix it.

Does anyone have a solution to connect with RDC to a 2008 Server?

[kayut]

Interesting!
The server which I am not able to connect to it from my Mac is also Server 2008!!

[neal5]

The attachment is a pic with the error message.

[neal5]

Originally Posted by kayut

Interesting!
The server which I am not able to connect to it from my Mac is also Server 2008!!

I got it to work.
For me, the trick was, instead of using the domain name, I used the dedicated IP address. Worked just fine.

[kayut]

The problem is that in my case there is no dedicated IP.
The VPN is using a dynamic IP which changes everyday.
Therefore it uses a no-ip.org name.

[neal5]

Originally Posted by kayut

The problem is that in my case there is no dedicated IP.
The VPN is using a dynamic IP which changes everyday.
Therefore it uses a no-ip.org name.

Well at least for a test, find out your IP and try to connect with that IP.

If it works, you know it could be an issue with the DNS, for some reason.
If not, well you tried.

[Tinmania]

Originally Posted by kayut

The problem is that in my case there is no dedicated IP.
The VPN is using a dynamic IP which changes everyday.
Therefore it uses a no-ip.org name.

Worst-case scenario: Use Network Utility to ping the no-ip.org address, get the IP, and use that each time for the RDP connection. Better than not connecting at all.




Mike

[Panch0]

Originally Posted by kayut

The problem is that in my case there is no dedicated IP.
The VPN is using a dynamic IP which changes everyday.
Therefore it uses a no-ip.org name.

From what you are saying, the dynamic address is for the VPN Connection. In the RDC connection, you would not be entering that, you would be entering the LAN address of the SERVER, not the VPN.

I have had no issues connecting from MAC RDC to any servers I have tried, but I did have some issues when I first switched to Mac. I found that when I was on the LAN, I could always connect, but when trying to connect remotely through VPN, I would have trouble. So, I learned to use the FQDN (myServer.MyDomain.net) of the remote system instead of using just the server name (myServer).

The VPN client you are using may be a factor in this, but I found that the built in client I started with didn't automatically route all lookups through the vpn tunnel - but if I used the FQDN, it did route properly and find the internal address of the server.

Also, if you can connect to win 2K3 servers but not Win2K8 on the same remote network, there may be a policy setting on the server that requires the client to provide some identification that isn't supported by the MAc version of RDC. I know that Win2K8 added some security options, but I don't remember exactly what they were. The Mac RDC client definitely does not support everything that the Windows client does, but you should be able to at least get connected.

The two features that I notice missing on the Mac Client are : Use all Monitors and smartcard passthrough. For Smartcard passthrough, I have to run a Fusion VM and launch the Windows RDC client from there...

[6speedjon]

You can't just enter the pc's name as it says in the examples it gives in the app such as MyPC. You have to add .local to the pc's name that you're trying to connect to, for example MyPC.local but thats not the only thing. Before you try to connect you have to go preferences for RDC and put in the user name and password of the pc that you're trying to connect to. Then hit connect. If you're network is a domain environment i imagine you'd have to put MyPC.domainname.com but i can't be sure as i don't have a domain environment to test that in.