Remote Desktop Connection beta expired, new version still weeks away

For Mac-centric sysadmins in a Windows-flavored world, there are a few essential tools: patience, humility, and RDC. Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection client is the easiest way for anyone on OS X to manage Windows servers near and far, and the truth is it works pretty well -- not perfectly, but capably. You can trade clipboard contents, print to your Mac-connected printers, and even share your Mac's local hard drives back to the Windows host for speedy file transfers. The last full release of RDC, however, was 1.0.3 back in 2004 -- sans Universal Binary, doesn't play well with Vista, and generally lacks pizazz.

A shiny new version 2 of RDC, rewritten from the ground up as an Intel-native app, has been in beta for months now, and it shows great promise; it's got full compatibility with the latest rev of the RD protocol, and it's downright snappy. One problem though: the beta officially expired today (March 31), and on each launch users are being prompted with the download dialog above (good luck downloading the "Lastest Version"). There isn't a new build yet, according to the Mac BU, and it's safe to keep using this beta; the nagging is annoying but not functionally problematic, and the team is working to quickly deliver a final edition.

Meanwhile, if you're being driven batty by the repeated and futile update dialogs, check out my favorite RDC stand-in: CoRD, the Mac OS X version of the open-source rdp tool. It may not have all the bells and whistles of the official tool (~~no clipboard sharing~~clipboard sharing, print/disk forwarding just released in the 0.5 beta), but for managing a handful of simultaneous sessions to a bunch of servers, it's fast and fabulous.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

View Tags

Source: http://www.officeformac.com/blog/RDC-Beta-Users--Beta2-is-Ex…

Categories

Beta Beat

For Mac-centric sysadmins in a Windows-flavored world, there are a few essential tools: patience, humility, and RDC. Microsoft's Remote...

Add a Comment

Sign in »

23 Comments

Filter by:

Ran

I download both RDC1 and RDC2beta

I can connect my Macbook Air to Desktop PC vis RDC1, but RDC2 doesn't work at all, keep prompting "cannot connect....contact the administrator blah blah blah..." What's wrong with it ?

April 08 2008 at 1:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Iain Barker

Expired RDC beta 2? Solution here:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.rdc/browse_thread/thread/db113ae768dc8ee7/efccd4e180cf175c#efccd4e180cf175c

microsoft.public.mac.rdc

April 06 2008 at 8:48 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

crypt0

CoRD would be good if it allowed u to set the screen resolution, something that RDC supports.

April 06 2008 at 2:01 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Kevin

http://flickr.com/photos/kevrodg/2385300522/

April 03 2008 at 9:11 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Giancarlo Gomez

Thank You! Than You! Thank You! CoRD rocks! Microsoft should do what they always do now and copy this program since theirs is a total piece of crap!!!! At least that is one thing they do good .... carbon copy great programs and OS's.

April 01 2008 at 5:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

andrew

Did anyone notice that when it asks you to upgrade it says Lastest Version?

Hire some proofreaders MS

April 01 2008 at 1:32 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

kurt.tappe

There is a long list of things about ARD that is lame. My latest is that when you push a package to 100 Macs and 33% of them fail, there's no "Retry failed pushes" feature; you must manually select the 33 that failed (sorting by success does not work!) and repush. And then repush to the 10 of those that fail. And the 4 of those that fail. And no reason is ever given for the failures!!

April 01 2008 at 12:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tony Hoyle

The killer for Cord for me was the lack of support for ctrl-tab, which is kind of a biggie when you're developing in visual studio. Otherwise it seemed OK. The official RDC feels faster too, although it's pretty close. Just wish MS would get off their asses and release the final version.

April 01 2008 at 9:28 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

andrew

For CoRD users who want to still use MS's RDC client, consider using RDC Menu - to get multiple RDC connections at the same time: http://www.xutils.com/rdcmenu/
I love it!

April 01 2008 at 9:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

maccomposer

Just downloaded and played with it. It's a great tool! Seems faster than RDC. I'm dumping RDC.

Thanks for sharing the tool with the community.

April 01 2008 at 9:12 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply