Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client 2.0 (Beta)

MacRumors · Jul 31, 2007, 03:59 PM

Microsoft has released version 2.0 (Beta) of their Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac.

Remote Desktop Connection Client lets you connect to a Microsoft Windows-based computer and work with programs and files on that computer from your Macintosh computer.

New features include:

- Universal Binary
- Provides better compatibility with Windows Vista, improved security features, and many other improvements.
- Multiple Sessions
- Improved User Experience
- Dynamic Screen Resizing
- Improved Printing Support

Article Link

balamw · Jul 31, 2007, 04:01 PM

For anyone who has already downloaded it.

How does it compare with CoRD? http://cord.sourceforge.net/

B

Eidorian · Jul 31, 2007, 04:11 PM

Can't wait to deploy the final version.

Why is it a .pkg though?

Westside guy · Jul 31, 2007, 04:13 PM

Interesting - I wonder why it needs an installer?

Sky Blue · Jul 31, 2007, 04:14 PM

Yay! Multiple sessions!

gauchogolfer · Jul 31, 2007, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by balamw

For anyone who has already downloaded it.

How does it compare with CoRD? http://cord.sourceforge.net/

B

Thanks for the CoRD link, B. I've just started connecting to my work machine via VPN, and haven't yet done it from my Powerbook. I downloaded the older Windows RDC for Mac this weekend, but I'll probably give the beta a try as well. I'll report back with my impressions if someone more knowledgeable doesn't beat me to it.

markfc · Jul 31, 2007, 04:21 PM

Ha Ha the Printing support for mac is better than the windows version!!!

twoodcc · Jul 31, 2007, 04:23 PM

seems nice. glad to see Universal Binary

Eidorian · Jul 31, 2007, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sky Blue

Yay! Multiple sessions!

Not that running multiple instances before didn't work...

mwxiao · Jul 31, 2007, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by balamw

For anyone who has already downloaded it.

How does it compare with CoRD? http://cord.sourceforge.net/

B

I've been using CoRD. But I think I'll give RDC a try. CoRD doesn't have the feature of file transfer.

Doctor Q · Jul 31, 2007, 04:32 PM

A quick check shows that it's a small download, a quick install, and it works as easily as version 1 did. So far so good.

mkrishnan · 04:53 PM

It is strange that it uses a pkg... but I guess it's better than coming in a Stuffit file.

I'm curious to try it out. The current release is great as-is, but a few of the things do sound like they'd be nice. Particularly if MRDC and Exposé cooperated better? (i.e. full screen apps and Exposé's show all windows mode).

EDIT: Update, it did indeed do this. Nicely, I might add.

I don't know if it's wise to or not, but if anyone is installing this while Office 04 is installed and they want to overwrite their copy of MRDC, which seems harmless, they should point the installer to this folder:

/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Additional Tools/Remote Desktop Connection

When asked to choose where to install, as this installation just drops in the single app bundle (and no folder).

It's very nice that it can render out a screen resolution to a window (so, e.g., if you go from full screen to windowed, you get a window with a reduced-size version of the fullscreen resolution). It does a nice job of this.

It has some other really nice little features:

- It lets you know only give the host computer access to the client's home directory and not the whole drive (which I don't think is in the Windows version yet). Although, oddly, it still seems to let a non-admin user give the client at least read access to the whole HD without needing to escalate privileges. If they fix this and respect local permissions, this would be a great security feature.

- Much better keymapping

- Adds the auto-reconnect feature that Windows has

- Adds the ability to send the RDC by default to full-screen on a display of your choice, if you have more than one display.

All in all, outstanding. I thought RDC 1.x was far better than CoRD; this is a substantial leap in turn over RDC 1.x!

P.S. I think the trend of just replacing actual releases of software with never-ending public betas is becoming tiresome (cough, GMail, cough)

theBB · Jul 31, 2007, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Westside guy

Interesting - I wonder why it needs an installer?

1.0 was a drag and drop. However, it required Stuffit to decompress. I hope they don't any more.

It is good to see Microsoft actually doing some development for Mac, but even the PPC version is working fine on my intel, so it is not all that exciting.

grabberslasher · Jul 31, 2007, 04:34 PM

Anyone notice that it's now a Cocoa app? It's a total rewrite, not just an update.

mkrishnan · Jul 31, 2007, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grabberslasher

Anyone notice that it's now a Cocoa app? It's a total rewrite, not just an update.

Does that mean anything interesting for this type of app in terms of functionality? Or is it just a peek at things to come? Cocoa Office?

edenwaith · 05:50 PM

Very nice. I saw on the MacMojo blog that RDC 2 was coming out this week. I'm downloading it right now. I use RDC on a daily basis, and it is my favorite Microsoft product. Very, very useful. The feature list looks quite nice, as well.

UPDATE: I'm trying it out, and this new version has fixed my two biggest problems I've had with RDC 1.

1) If I tried to connect to another computer, and it failed, it would not be able to connect to any other computer until I quit and restarted RDC.

2) Drag-drop-and-copy operations in Windows would cause RDC to crash for some reason. No crashes so far.

One of the biggest differences I've seen so far is that the preferences are now in their own window (RDC -> Preferences), rather than set in the main window. The main interface is somewhat dark looking, which I'm not a big fan of, but it's not a real problem. All of the other options from RDC 1 seem to be there, to be able to display the contents fulls screen to a second display, etc. I love the new feature of being able to mount the Mac's drives on the connected Windows machine. This is a very, very handy feature.

Yes, this is an installer, but at least Microsoft didn't package it as a sitx file. I think they did that with some version of Windows Media Player, which was pretty irritating if you didn't have a recent version of StuffIt.

rockstarjoe · Jul 31, 2007, 05:08 PM

I can't wait to try this! I use Remote Desktop on a daily basis so this is a big deal for me

danielwsmithee · Jul 31, 2007, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sky Blue

Yay! Multiple sessions!

So how do you create a second session. I don't see any option such as "connect to another machine"?

/dev/toaster · Jul 31, 2007, 05:14 PM

Wow, gotta love MS ...

gschumsky · Jul 31, 2007, 05:15 PM

Cool. I use RDC now and every now and then on my Intel Mac it just quits/bombs out in the middle of a session. Add in printer support (cool!) and file transfer (so I don't have the use the web dropbox account) and I think I'll like it even more.

Clive At Five · Jul 31, 2007, 05:18 PM

Cross platform drag-n-drop?
Copy/Paste?
What's the response time?

Details, please.

-Clive

NiteWaves77 · Jul 31, 2007, 05:24 PM

1. Display and user response are speedy.

2. Local drives and printers finally connect properly without crashing some Macs.

3. Sound retargeting quality crisp on slower connections.

4. Preferences finally where they belong.

5. Saving Windows login credentials no longer chews up your login.keychain.

The only downside so far: doesn't dynamically resize the desktop dimensions on the server side when you switch from full-screen to windowed, so you're going to get a fuzzy desktop on the client if you use the "fit to window" option.

NiteWaves77 · Jul 31, 2007, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clive At Five

Cross platform drag-n-drop?
Copy/Paste?
What's the response time?

Details, please.

-Clive

No drag-n-drop, but you can map a local Mac drive to the Windows machine -- automagically -- at connect time. Same goes for printers. That's been a feature since the previous version, but it was often flakey.

Copy/Paste was available in the previous version. It remains.

Response time is very comfortable. Pretty damn close to sitting in front of the PC. CoRD claims to be faster, but not in my personal experience.

IJ Reilly · Jul 31, 2007, 05:36 PM

What will it cost, once the trial period is over?

petieg · Jul 31, 2007, 05:37 PM

While it indeed seems to be a good start for a UB RDC client, there is no Console support, so no session 0 on a Win2k3 server. They should also have included some 16x9 'type' resolutions instead of the standard 4x3. We'll see about printer support -- this has always been an issue, even for Windoze worlds.

Jul 31, 2007, 03:59 PM	#1
MacRumors macrumors bot Join Date: Apr 2001	Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client 2.0 (Beta) Microsoft has released version 2.0 (Beta) of their Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac. Remote Desktop Connection Client lets you connect to a Microsoft Windows-based computer and work with programs and files on that computer from your Macintosh computer. New features include: - Universal Binary - Provides better compatibility with Windows Vista, improved security features, and many other improvements. - Multiple Sessions - Improved User Experience - Dynamic Screen Resizing - Improved Printing Support Article Link

Jul 31, 2007, 04:01 PM	#2
balamw macrumors 601 Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: New England, USA	For anyone who has already downloaded it. How does it compare with CoRD? http://cord.sourceforge.net/ B __________________ UMBP (15" SD 2.8 GHz), UMB (13" 2.4 GHz), iMac (17" Yonah), 16GB iPhone 3G, 8GB 3G Nano, Airport Extreme, Time Capsule, TV

Jul 31, 2007, 04:11 PM	#3
Eidorian macrumors G3 Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Indiana	Can't wait to deploy the final version. Why is it a .pkg though? __________________ MRoogle it! hikari T7500 2.2 GHz / 4 GB / 320 GB / GMA X3100 / 10.5.8 chobimaru Core i5 750 2.66 GHz / 4 GB / 640 GB / 4830 / Windows 7

Jul 31, 2007, 04:13 PM	#4
Westside guy macrumors 68040 Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: The soggy part of the Pacific NW	Interesting - I wonder why it needs an installer? __________________ The fevered rantings found in this post are generated randomly. Any resemblance to coherent thought is completely coincidental.

Jul 31, 2007, 04:23 PM	#8
twoodcc macrumors 603 Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Right side of wrong	seems nice. glad to see Universal Binary __________________ tville pump Smarter than the average bear

Jul 31, 2007, 04:14 PM	#5
Sky Blue macrumors 68040 Join Date: Jan 2005	Yay! Multiple sessions!

Jul 31, 2007, 04:21 PM	#7
markfc macrumors 6502 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Prestatyn, Wales, UK	Ha Ha the Printing support for mac is better than the windows version!!!

Jul 31, 2007, 04:32 PM	#11
Doctor Q macrumors god Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: at the table with countless relatives	A quick check shows that it's a small download, a quick install, and it works as easily as version 1 did. So far so good. __________________ "You've just been abducted, of course you need crepes!" -- Walter Bishop

Jul 31, 2007, 04:32 PM	#12
mkrishnan Demi-God (Moderator) Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Grand Rapids, MI, USA	It is strange that it uses a pkg... but I guess it's better than coming in a Stuffit file. I'm curious to try it out. The current release is great as-is, but a few of the things do sound like they'd be nice. Particularly if MRDC and Exposé cooperated better? (i.e. full screen apps and Exposé's show all windows mode). EDIT: Update, it did indeed do this. Nicely, I might add. I don't know if it's wise to or not, but if anyone is installing this while Office 04 is installed and they want to overwrite their copy of MRDC, which seems harmless, they should point the installer to this folder: /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Additional Tools/Remote Desktop Connection When asked to choose where to install, as this installation just drops in the single app bundle (and no folder). It's very nice that it can render out a screen resolution to a window (so, e.g., if you go from full screen to windowed, you get a window with a reduced-size version of the fullscreen resolution). It does a nice job of this. It has some other really nice little features: - It lets you know only give the host computer access to the client's home directory and not the whole drive (which I don't think is in the Windows version yet). Although, oddly, it still seems to let a non-admin user give the client at least read access to the whole HD without needing to escalate privileges. If they fix this and respect local permissions, this would be a great security feature. - Much better keymapping - Adds the auto-reconnect feature that Windows has - Adds the ability to send the RDC by default to full-screen on a display of your choice, if you have more than one display. All in all, outstanding. I thought RDC 1.x was far better than CoRD; this is a substantial leap in turn over RDC 1.x! P.S. I think the trend of just replacing actual releases of software with never-ending public betas is becoming tiresome (cough, GMail, cough) __________________ Mohan Last edited by mkrishnan : Jul 31, 2007 at 04:53 PM.

Jul 31, 2007, 04:34 PM	#14
grabberslasher macrumors 6502 Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Éire	Anyone notice that it's now a Cocoa app? It's a total rewrite, not just an update.

Jul 31, 2007, 04:42 PM	#16
edenwaith macrumors 6502 Join Date: Aug 2001	:) Very nice. I saw on the MacMojo blog that RDC 2 was coming out this week. I'm downloading it right now. I use RDC on a daily basis, and it is my favorite Microsoft product. Very, very useful. The feature list looks quite nice, as well. UPDATE: I'm trying it out, and this new version has fixed my two biggest problems I've had with RDC 1. 1) If I tried to connect to another computer, and it failed, it would not be able to connect to any other computer until I quit and restarted RDC. 2) Drag-drop-and-copy operations in Windows would cause RDC to crash for some reason. No crashes so far. One of the biggest differences I've seen so far is that the preferences are now in their own window (RDC -> Preferences), rather than set in the main window. The main interface is somewhat dark looking, which I'm not a big fan of, but it's not a real problem. All of the other options from RDC 1 seem to be there, to be able to display the contents fulls screen to a second display, etc. I love the new feature of being able to mount the Mac's drives on the connected Windows machine. This is a very, very handy feature. Yes, this is an installer, but at least Microsoft didn't package it as a sitx file. I think they did that with some version of Windows Media Player, which was pretty irritating if you didn't have a recent version of StuffIt. Last edited by edenwaith : Jul 31, 2007 at 05:50 PM. Reason: Updating content.

Jul 31, 2007, 05:08 PM	#17
rockstarjoe macrumors 6502a Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: washington dc	I can't wait to try this! I use Remote Desktop on a daily basis so this is a big deal for me __________________ Macbook, iPod Classic, iPhone 3g, hackintosh My band - [velvet] - Our music on iTunes

Jul 31, 2007, 05:14 PM	#19
/dev/toaster macrumors 65816 Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: San Francisco, CA	Wow, gotta love MS ... Attached Thumbnails __________________ http://www.jokeped.com http://www.linkped.com

Jul 31, 2007, 05:15 PM	#20
gschumsky macrumors member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: San Diego (Jamul), Ca	Cool. I use RDC now and every now and then on my Intel Mac it just quits/bombs out in the middle of a session. Add in printer support (cool!) and file transfer (so I don't have the use the web dropbox account) and I think I'll like it even more.

Jul 31, 2007, 05:18 PM	#21
Clive At Five macrumors 65816 Join Date: May 2004 Location: St. Paul, MN	Cross platform drag-n-drop? Copy/Paste? What's the response time? Details, please. -Clive __________________ My Mod: G4 Cube + Atom 330 CPU + Wiimote = Ultimate HTPC!

Jul 31, 2007, 05:24 PM	#22
NiteWaves77 macrumors member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Now living in Menlo Park, California	Excellent - Finally Works As It Should 1. Display and user response are speedy. 2. Local drives and printers finally connect properly without crashing some Macs. 3. Sound retargeting quality crisp on slower connections. 4. Preferences finally where they belong. 5. Saving Windows login credentials no longer chews up your login.keychain. The only downside so far: doesn't dynamically resize the desktop dimensions on the server side when you switch from full-screen to windowed, so you're going to get a fuzzy desktop on the client if you use the "fit to window" option.

Jul 31, 2007, 05:36 PM	#24
IJ Reilly macrumors 603 Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Palookaville	What will it cost, once the trial period is over? __________________ **The season starts too early and finishes too late and there are too many games in between.* Bill Veeck

Jul 31, 2007, 05:37 PM	#25
petieg macrumors newbie Join Date: Jul 2007	No Console support While it indeed seems to be a good start for a UB RDC client, there is no Console support, so no session 0 on a Win2k3 server. They should also have included some 16x9 'type' resolutions instead of the standard 4x3. We'll see about printer support -- this has always been an issue, even for Windoze worlds.

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