Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Phanguye · Jul 26, 2002, 09:04 PM

Am I late or has no one comented on this? This is great, as long as you have a PC with windows on a network you can see the LIVE screen on a Mac!
VPC KILLER!

<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/mac/DOWNLOAD/MISC/RDC.asp" target="_blank">http://www.microsoft.com/mac/DOWNLOAD/MISC/RDC.asp</a>

Phanguye · Jul 26, 2002, 09:14 PM

Sound too!

kman42 · Jul 26, 2002, 10:32 PM

I couldn't figure out how to configure the PC. I don't think Windows 2000 Professional is enough; I think it requires Advanced or Server Edition or something. I'm glad Apple only has two OS versions.

kman

Alex Duffield · Jul 26, 2002, 10:52 PM

How does performance compare to VNC?

Ken_F2 · Jul 26, 2002, 10:53 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />I couldn't figure out how to configure the PC. I don't think Windows 2000 Professional is enough; I think it requires Advanced or Server Edition or something. I'm glad Apple only has two OS versions.
<hr /></blockquote>Windows XP was the first version of Windows to incorporate this functionality in a consumer version of Windows; all you have to do is <a href="http://kfowler.bizland.com/temp/remotedesktop.png" target="_blank">check this box</a> in the System control panel. For Windows 2000, you must have Server.

As has been discussed in other threads, this is a VPC killer. If you have a home network with a fast network, and both a PC and a Mac on the network, you can run Windows windowed or full screen on your Mac just as if you were using a PC (the PC does all the processing). It's much more responsive than running VPC on a Mac.

Apple should have agreed to incorporate or bundle this free remote desktop client with Jaguar; that would have truly made for awesome PC compatibility.

ckohler · Jul 26, 2002, 11:03 PM

I agree. Microsoft did a great job with porting this client to OSX. Now I just hope that Apple can come up with something similar that offers this kind of performance when sharing my OSX desktop on a PC.

Mac007 · Jul 26, 2002, 11:11 PM

I'm sure this is a great deal if you already have a Wintel computer. If you don't it means the extra added cost of buying a Wintel computer making VPC the cheaper solution.

Colin Davis · Jul 26, 2002, 11:21 PM

Right, but I think the question was about the performance relative to VNC, which is a way to do remote access that has existed for 10 years <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />
Such as <a href="http://www.tightvnc.com/" target="_blank">TightVNC</a>

Colin

Steve Bosell · 07:29 PM

The performance is way better than vpc, even over airport. You can't play quake3 but who cares. it is all about versatility

Gul Banana · Jul 27, 2002, 05:14 AM

That is quite possibly one of the most.. diverse.. desktops I have ever seen in my life. Especially if that KDE toolbar is from an ssh to a Linux box on the same network, rather than local

iAdmin · Jul 27, 2002, 01:45 PM

This is old. I've been running terminal service clients using XDarwin and rdesktop 6 months ago.. However, I am glad Microsoft release this in a easy point-n-click application.

rdesktop is great...

all you need to do is type in:

rdesktop server ip -u:username

doesn't support sound and shared folders like MS RDC.

mikerally · Jul 27, 2002, 04:35 PM

I really like this proggy, I just used my iBook to remotely log into my Windows XP Desktop PC via my house LAN which is extended by Airport, so I'm sitting with my iBook in the garden using my PC which is indoors!

What a pleasant treat!

yuliang · Jul 27, 2002, 05:57 PM

RDC works great. I have a Pentium 4 HP running XP Professional across the room, and RDC allows me to sit in one spot and work on both computers. Speed is phenomenal compared to VPC. Transporting data across a network seems to be far faster than translating Pentium code to PPC.

JB72 · Jul 27, 2002, 06:56 PM

Assuming you can run this to a headless PC box, and you have a network, seems like buying a cheap PC might be similar in price to Virtual PC 5. Plus is sounds like it has the "snappy factor."

Kaner · Jul 27, 2002, 10:38 PM

Yeah, its good for low motion graphics, it doesn't support direct draw or any anti-aliasing (none at all). I guess the computer is rendering a totaly seperate image for the mac client, not the one that is on the screen.

Ken_F2 · Jul 28, 2002, 12:05 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Yeah, its good for low motion graphics, it doesn't support direct draw or any anti-aliasing (none at all). I guess the computer is rendering a totaly seperate image for the mac client, not the one that is on the screen. <hr /></blockquote>Yes, the main limitation is that you don't get font anti-aliasing, but then, you'd probably would not have enabled this with VPC anyway; of course you can get millions of colors and sound if your PC is running XP. The new Windows .Net Server (basically NT 5.2, whereas XP is NT 5.1) supports a new enhanced version of Remote Desktop and terminal services with more features, but I'm not quite sure what all of those new features are as yet.

In the current version of Remote Desktop under XP, you see the entire Windows desktop (either windowed or full screen) on your Mac. With the new Remote Desktop in .NET Server, I understand that it supports launching of specific applications via shortcuts. So you could conceivably have a shortcut to your Mac desktop for Word XP, you double-click it, and you see just Word; you exit Word and it terminates the session. This allows different Windows.Net servers to be setup to host different applications. The new version also improves performance further on faster connections (and of course, Server supports many concurrent remote desktop users, whereas XP Pro only supports one).

Chazzoz · Jul 28, 2002, 10:14 PM

Steve-

What's that clock app that says "shortly after ten"?

Steve Bosell · Jul 28, 2002, 10:30 PM

<a href="http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=11278&db=mac" target="_blank">Fuzzyclock</a> the best clock ever

Superchicken · Jul 29, 2002, 07:52 PM

Oh wow.. this is amazing!
I hate to say it.. but in some ways I like the idea of being able to hook up a PC to my iMac.. sounds scarrying, but maybe build a box myself put in like a cheap Athalon proccessor and junk...
hmmmmmmmmmm

Any idea how this would be for games.... not that I'm a gamer but... is there a possibility, which comp's graphics card would it use... or would it use it at all?
Like I dono... I don't even know how it makes the image under OS X... hmmmmmmm...
You know that sounds like a really cool app... just for compatability's sake

Ken_F2 · 02:29 AM

superchic,

Any idea how this would be for games.... not that I'm a gamer but... is there a possibility, which comp's graphics card would it use... or would it use it at all?
Like I dono... I don't even know how it makes the image under OS X... hmmmmmmm...
You know that sounds like a really cool app... just for compatability's sake

It works very well for web browsing, productivity applications, and that type of thing (much much faster than doing these things through VPC), but not for games. With Remote Desktop, Windows compresses everything on the screen and sends it over to the Mac for display, and obviously that's not going to work well for a game running at 30-60fps.

echoes · Jul 30, 2002, 12:29 AM

Web browsing through the RDC client and listening to music in winamp (check the %CPU on the OS X side :o ) through the client is very impressive. I�m on a reasonably fast network so I�m not sure what it would be like through dialup but I like what I see so far.

Eug · Aug 5, 2002, 10:08 PM

Here I am running Remote Desktop (over wireless) and Virtual PC simultaneously. Both programs are very impressive. Speed of Remote Desktop is much better obviously, even over 802.11b.

Nephron · Aug 5, 2002, 10:57 PM

I use Virtual PC 5 and the new RDC. In order to run RDC in any practical way, I had to change one of our work PCs to Windows 2000 Server (CAN$1500 with 5 client licenses). I also have to buy terminal client licenses for each user (CAN$125 each). It was costly to set up, but RDC to my Win2K server works great. We have an Access database on a Novell server, plus a couple of other work-related programs with no Mac equivalent. Getting to these previously was a pain in the ass. VPC 5 worked well, but slowly. RDC is much faster, and doesn't hog my system the way VPC does.

I still need VPC for when I am away from our office network and need to do work on Access, but at the office I am now 100% RDC.

Many thanks to Microsoft. This was an unexpected bonus, and one of the most important Mac programs to come my way this year.

Cheers!

Ken_F2 · 05:11 AM

I use Virtual PC 5 and the new RDC. In order to run RDC in any practical way, I had to change one of our work PCs to Windows 2000 Server (CAN$1500 with 5 client licenses). I also have to buy terminal client licenses for each user (CAN$125 each). It was costly to set up, but RDC to my Win2K server works great. We have an Access database on a Novell server, plus a couple of other work-related programs with no Mac equivalent. Getting to these previously was a pain in the ass. VPC 5 worked well, but slowly. RDC is much faster, and doesn't hog my system the way VPC does.

Just as a tip for others out there...If you just want to support one user remotely with RDC, you don't need 2000 Server. Windows XP Professional is all you need in that case, and setup is only a matter of checking one box. Windows XP also uses a newer version of the Remote Desktop Protocol (v5.1 vs 5.0) than Windows 2000, which means it's faster, offers file redirection, high color support, resolutions up to 1600x1200, etc.

If you are a system administrator that would like to provide remote desktop functionality for multiple simultaneous Mac users with a single server, but don't want to spend the money (i.e. to evaluate the system), sign up for Microsoft's Windows .NET Server customer preview program. It's free. Windows .NET Server replaces Windows 2000 Server; it's faster, more robust, and terminal services functionality and performance is greatly improved (RDP v5.2 vs v5.0 in Win2000). As a release candidate, it isn't final (but its more stable/reliable than W2k in my experience, which is saying something), and should not be deployed in a production environments, but if you want to evaluate Windows on multiple Macs through RDC without paying $$$$, this is a good way to do it. It expires one year from the time of installation.

adamtki · Aug 6, 2002, 04:58 AM

I've been wanting to see a Mac version of this for quite some time. I suggested this idea about half a year ago and they were already trying to get a feel for how useful this would be. I told them that it would definitely be very useful. Many mac users own both PCs and Macs. And this is a great solution for the work environment.

Before this came out, I would start up VPC just to launch the XP RDC client or (before) the Win2k TS client program. Now I haven't launched VPC in quite a while!

Performance wise, I don't think it's up to par with the PC version, but it performs fairly well now. Strangely, during my beta testing of this, it didn't even beat the PC RDC client running on VPC, but I think it's faster now!

If you haven't upgraded your PC to XP, I would recommend it just for the improved RDC server support. You can RDC to your active desktop session (instead of starting a new one) and you don't need to go through add/remove programs just to install anything.

Eug · Aug 6, 2002, 12:16 PM

Yeah, Windows XP Professional and Microsoft's OS X Remote Desktop for Windows = extremely simple set up. Only 1 box to check, as somebody mentioned.

Psihawk · Aug 6, 2002, 05:09 PM

Just wanted to say that this is really cool! I have a firewall and router and can connect to my PC from the outside world without trouble... I just opened the port the say in the help and BANG! right on my machine.

Awesome!!

Nephron · Aug 6, 2002, 07:16 PM

Originally posted by Ken_F2:
Just as a tip for others out there...If you just want to support one user remotely with RDC, you don't need 2000 Server. Windows XP Professional is all you need in that case, and setup is only a matter of checking one box. Windows XP also uses a newer version of the Remote Desktop Protocol (v5.1 vs 5.0) than Windows 2000, which means it's faster, offers file redirection, high color support, resolutions up to 1600x1200, etc.

If you are a system administrator that would like to provide remote desktop functionality for multiple simultaneous Mac users with a single server, but don't want to spend the money (i.e. to evaluate the system), sign up for Microsoft's Windows .NET Server customer preview program. It's free. Windows .NET Server replaces Windows 2000 Server; it's faster, more robust, and terminal services functionality and performance is greatly improved (RDP v5.2 vs v5.0 in Win2000). As a release candidate, it isn't final (but its more stable/reliable than W2k in my experience, which is saying something), and should not be deployed in a production environments, but if you want to evaluate Windows on multiple Macs through RDC without paying $$$$, this is a good way to do it. It expires one year from the time of installation.

The Windows XP remote desktop functions work impressively well. However, noone can use the host computer while you are connected, and XP can only host one client at a time. For many users this will be enough though.

If you need to be able to use the host computer, or if you need more than one client connected at the same time, you need to use either Win2000 Server, or the .Net beta. The .Net beta is a good idea if you are not in a major production environment. I don't think most IT departments would be real keen on a beta OS on an important server. Eventually the beta expires, and you need to pay for the OS and licenses. If you want to try out the client/server thing before shelling out big bucks, .Net is likely a good way to delay paying Micro$oft. Does anyone know if you still need to pay for client or terminal licenses with the .Net beta?

Cheers!

Eug · Aug 6, 2002, 07:54 PM

Originally posted by Psihawk:
Just wanted to say that this is really cool! I have a firewall and router and can connect to my PC from the outside world without trouble... I just opened the port the say in the help and BANG! right on my machine.

Awesome!!

I'm tempted, but it seems risky to me open up ports to my machine for direct control.

I'm wondering though. If I'm behind a firewall at work, this will be moot, right? I won't have access to anything beyond port 80 and a few others.

laxthxdude · Aug 6, 2002, 08:09 PM

I use RDC over Cisco VPN (1.5 Mb Cable) to connect to work (I'm a NT Network Admin) and it is great - they even implemented version 5.0 for RDP which gives you drive, sound, port remapping along with high colors. They Windows CE.NET with RDP 5.0 isn't even out yet, let along .NET server - so it is very nice having these features first

We are all Windows 2000 with Terminal Services (thin clients to 98% of our users) so when we roll out VPN to end users, we can offer Mac and PC access - plus it will litterally be like they are at their desk working...

Now, if Citrix will only get their head out of their butts and make a real client of OS X....

Ken_F2 · Aug 7, 2002, 07:06 AM

If you need to be able to use the host computer, or if you need more than one client connected at the same time, you need to use either Win2000 Server, or the .Net beta. The .Net beta is a good idea if you are not in a major production environment. I don't think most IT departments would be real keen on a beta OS on an important server. Eventually the beta expires, and you need to pay for the OS and licenses. If you want to try out the client/server thing before shelling out big bucks, .Net is likely a good way to delay paying Micro$oft. Does anyone know if you still need to pay for client or terminal licenses with the .Net beta?

No, you don't have to pay for client/terminal licenses with the Server .Net prerelease. But client/terminal licenses are only good for 120 days. So, the .Net prerelease expires one year from installation, and client/terminal licenses are valid for 120 days (works without a license server).

Cotton · Aug 7, 2002, 08:23 AM

can i get a RD server for DOS? i have a copy of 6.1 just sitting here, with some great DOS games (GTA 1!!) i'd love to get back into, and don't feel like dropping the cash on VPC...

</sarcasm>

sailin74 · Oct 11, 2003, 10:36 AM

Don't see much on M$'s website about this. Can't find it actually for the XP side. Do you need XP pro, or will XP home edition do it as well? I can't seem to get it to talk with my non-pro XP box.

-Jason

kovacs · Oct 11, 2003, 11:00 AM

Originally posted by sailin74:
Don't see much on M$'s website about this. Can't find it actually for the XP side. Do you need XP pro, or will XP home edition do it as well? I can't seem to get it to talk with my non-pro XP box.

-Jason

You need XP Pro !

Information

sailin74 · Oct 11, 2003, 11:27 AM

Rats

osxisfun · Oct 11, 2003, 11:30 AM

I use it and i love it...

I own timbuktu for windows and i like this better. sometimes i don't want to KVM to my xp machine so i start this baby up and it rock IMO...

wallinbl · Oct 11, 2003, 12:00 PM

Originally posted by adamtki:
I've been wanting to see a Mac version of this for quite some time. I suggested this idea about half a year ago and they were already trying to get a feel for how useful this would be. I told them that it would definitely be very useful. Many mac users own both PCs and Macs. And this is a great solution for the work environment.

The Mac RDC client has been out for a long time. It was definitely out 6 months ago.

JB72 · Oct 11, 2003, 12:39 PM

Still rox. Occasionally I connect to my HTPC via airport and do some maintenance from my Mac. Convenient.

I'd recommend getting one of those ultra tiny PCs, headless, and network it via firewire instead of Virtual PC.

Hap · Oct 11, 2003, 12:46 PM

I think this question was asked previously but I didn't see an answer. It looks like RDC offers a few things VNC does not however in a one user environmet how do they compare?

osxisfun · Oct 11, 2003, 12:59 PM

>I'd recommend getting one of those ultra tiny PCs, headless, and network it via firewire instead of Virtual PC.

I bought a "shuttle" pro box just as you recommend. very happy.

tiny. it sits behind my mac. out of sight out of mind...

010111 · Oct 11, 2003, 01:17 PM

Originally posted by wallinbl:
The Mac RDC client has been out for a long time. It was definitely out 6 months ago.

considering his original post in over a year old (August 2002) i think it probably was "new" then. and also definately out over 6 months ago.

why is a post from over a year old on the front page of MacNN as a forum 'hot topic' again? one of those stories was even older and more out of date than this one!

alex_kac · Oct 11, 2003, 02:50 PM

The problem with RDC as far as I can tell is that on TWO of my systems, it screws with the clipboard majorly as well as on Panther it won't quit correctly.

I would like to know if there is a binary of rDesktop that works with Apple's X11 or any news of anything better.

fulmer · Oct 11, 2003, 03:32 PM

not sure why this was bumped, but I'll chime in to say that RDC is a sweet program. It does very well what it's meant to do.

alex_kac · Oct 11, 2003, 05:09 PM

The thread is bumped becuase its got some issues and I'm looking for an X11 version to see if that rectifies the issues.

The Mick · Oct 11, 2003, 05:37 PM

RDP client works great, I use it at work to remotely administer servers. I connect into a Citrix server at work from home, it's even better than RDP.

legacyb4 · Oct 11, 2003, 06:48 PM

If you've got your Mac and the PC you want to connect to on the same network, run RDC through an SSH tunnel for better security than the encryption RDC offers natively.

Cheers.

Originally posted by Eug:
I'm tempted, but it seems risky to me open up ports to my machine for direct control.

I'm wondering though. If I'm behind a firewall at work, this will be moot, right? I won't have access to anything beyond port 80 and a few others.

michaelb · Oct 11, 2003, 08:16 PM

Puzzled...

What is this offerihg that Timbuktu hasn't been doing since, oh, the mid-90s?

Nephron · Oct 11, 2003, 08:40 PM

Originally posted by michaelb:
Puzzled...

What is this offerihg that Timbuktu hasn't been doing since, oh, the mid-90s?

Well, Remote Desktop Client is free ...

Eug Wanker · Oct 12, 2003, 09:10 PM

Originally posted by alex_kac:
on Panther it won't quit correctly.

Works fine here with Panther.

JB72 · Oct 12, 2003, 09:42 PM

Originally posted by osxisfun:
I bought a "shuttle" pro box just as you recommend. very happy.

tiny. it sits behind my mac. out of sight out of mind...

Good deal. I too have an XPC. It's in the other room now, but I still use RDC over Airport.