If you’re like me, you sometimes need to return to your Windows PC to do something. In my case, I prefer not having to monkey around with a KVM switch, so I like using remote redisplay whenever possible. When I was still using a PC, I’d use the built-in Microsoft Remote Desktop client to access my other machines. Now that I’m on a Mac, I’ve been trying to find something similar.
So, doing a search, I found out that Microsoft actually builds an RDP client for MacOS. Unfortunately for Intel Mac users, it’s not a Universal Binary. I gave it a try under Rosetta and it was just awful. It was so slow, I’d click on the “Start” button and wait for upwards of 10 seconds before seeing any response. It was so awful I decided to give VNC a try. VNC was equally bad. I’m not sure if I was using a bad client, a bad server or both. But it was just as slow and unresponsive as the PowerPC RDP binary.
As a last resort, I turned to rdesktop. I’ve used it once or twice before from my BSD machine, but I’d never seriously given it a chance. I noticed that Fink happens to have distributions of rdesktop, so I downloaded Fink and fired away. You’ll have to add the test branch to your Fink setup. It doesn’t appear that rdesktop has made it into stable yet. There also doesn’t appear to be a binary distribution available for it yet, so you’re going to have to install from source instead. If you haven’t already installed software using Fink, that could take a while as you build all of the dependencies as well (anybody know if there’s a way to tell Fink, “install binaries for whatever you have, otherwise install from source”?).
I initially ran using the Xorg X11 distribution available through Fink. I was thoroughly unimpressed with it’s window management, so I’ve since removed that and installed the Apple X11 that comes with the OS installation CDs. It just feels better. Using Xorg felt like I was grinding gears all the time.
Using rdesktop over a tunneled SSH connection is great. Feels just as responsive as any time I’ve used the Windows client on a PC. My only difficulty with it is making sure I remember which keys on the Mac keyboard map to which keys on a PC keyboard.
As an aside, while Fink isn’t perfect, it is nice being able to use common UNIX utilities on my Mac (ones that aren’t already provided by MacOS, I should say). Recently I’ve also gotten ethereal and kcachegrind from Fink, both of which work like a charm.
Update: According to, well, everybody in my comments…it’s just me. Lots of people are reporting that the MS client runs great on their dual core MacBook Pros. I wonder why it sucked so much for me. Maybe I caught the corporate wireless on a bad day. Or maybe I caught the SSH servers on a bad day. Who knows. Regardless, rdesktop is working great for me.
I routinely use the MS RD client for Mac on my MacBook Pro and it seems pretty snappy to me. I connect to 3 Windows 2003 servers that I maintain. (Displaying thousands of colors at 1024×768) Web browsing seems pretty quick. The Start menu pops up immediately for me. I do have a nice, fast connection to these machines and they are in the next room so maybe I have an advantage.
Mahalo,
kevin
What is your Mactel hardware configuration? I just ordered a new MacPro and was planning on using Microsoft’s RDC client to connect with our PCs…..
I do remote support from home using my MacBook Pro 15″ with 2GB of RAM and 2 x 2.16GHz cores. For at least 3-4 hours of every day I have to work from within Microsoft’s remote desktop to connect to either local test Windows machines, corporate terminal servers via ADSL, or customer machines.
I’ve not had any problems running MS RDP during that time; of all the MS applications it worked best for me under Rosetta. It may be that occasionally I have to reboot (about once a week) because Excel stops launching, but MS RDP just works time and time again. This includes both standard window sizes of up to 1280×960 and full screen, full colour connections to XP systems.
It almost seems as if something odd is going on for Ryan.
I have been using RDC for the longest time, and recently installed it on a new Mini Dual 2 weeks ago.
I have not seen the problems that Ryan is having.
I’m connection over an Airport connection that can be flaky at times to my DSL, which then connects to my T1 at work.
I routinely use the MS RD client for Mac on my MacBook Pro and it seems pretty snappy to me. I connect to a Windows machine a work. (Displaying thousands of colors at 1024×768).The Start menu pops up immediately for me. I do have a nice, fast connection to this machine. I used a PowerBook G4 and a IBook G4 with MS Rd client for Mac at work and they all worked fine, I think its the best program Microsoft has out there.
I use the MS Remote Desktop client on my Intel Mini (Core Duo) frequently and display it at 1900 x 1200 (caught my SysAdmin’s attention at work - he says it’s a record for him), and it works just fine. There’s a small delay that you would expect over the Internet. If I display a PowerPoint presentation in slide show mode, there is a noticeable lag in displaying slides with any significant graphics, but that is a bandwidth issue, not a client issue.
Me too, certainly not as fast as mstsc on windows, but RDC is no slouch on my macbook either.
I use Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) under Mac OS X 10.4.7 on a 17″ iMac Core Duo (1.83GHz/2GB RAM) and have no problems at all. It is a little slower that the program running on a PowerPC, but it is very usable. I use it daily to access my computer at the Office.
For anyone wanting to remote desktop from Mac to Mac, Apple’s own software - imaginatively called ‘Apple Remote Desktop’ is superb, if expensive. You can simultaneously view as many client screens as you like, all nicely scaled to fit into one window - but it also does much much more.
In fact, I’d like to see Apple just release the remote control part as a separate (free) product. This could be what the Leopard Screen sharing feature of iChat turns out to be.
I use RDC from my Intel iMac at home to connect to my XP box at work and it is just as responsive on the Mac side as it is on the Windows side of the iMac. Perhaps your connection is bad? Perhaps the Windows box you are connecting to has an issue?
Gonna have to agree with the other commentors here. I use the MS RDC on both a Dual G5 2GHZ desktop and my shiny new MacBook with 2GHz Core Duo.
They are essentially identical speed wise and extremely stable. Just this past Friday I was connected to my Windows XP Desktop all day long via RDC with no problems at all (well except for needing to reboot the PC once).
My MacBook has the 2GHz Core Duo, 2GB Ram and a 100GB 7200 RPM hard drive.
How much RAM do you have? The recommendation being to put in as much as you can fit/afford. Also when using rosetta apps, the more ram the better I think.
I’m topped out, 2GB. I’m guessing it’s likely a network thing. Perhaps my SSH tunnel on that particular day wasn’t up to handling it.
I’m finding it useless on my girlfriends 2GHz Core Duo iMac running 10.4.7. I’m not sure if the problem is due to using Appe’s inbuilt PPTP client, where I used to use Digitunnel before (until it expired, and I realised there was inbuilt support..)
It freezes very very regularly for ~10 - 15 seconds at a time, then wakes up again. Just now the application has quit about 4 times in 10 minutes.
I’d never had the application actually quit before, just the freezes/delays, up until just now. The last change on this machine was the latest Software Update from Apple, which I did last time I was here. hmmm. Anyway, something’s not right.
Carl, that’s almost exactly the behavior I had been seeing. Glad to hear I wasn’t crazy.
I had similar issues with the MS RDC.
That’s why I packaged up rdesktop and TSclient (a GUI frontend) together as an .app bundle, check it out.
Screenshot:
http://desktopecho.com/danm/TSclient.png
DMG File:
http://desktopecho.com/danm/TSclientX_1.0.1-intel.dmg.gz
i had the freezing problems too logging onto my Windows 2000 Server at work. i did it everyday with my old home PC running XP Pro, but i just bought a shiny new 17″ MacBook Pro and i would love to be able to work from home again. does anyone know what i should do??
Hello,
I can not seem to get MS RDP to install. I have download the .bin file and it opens in Excel. Can someone give a had getting this installed?
I am very new to MAC. Thanks.
Pauk
If Microsoft’s remote desktop client fails to launch (icon bounces forever in dock), delete its preferences folder at
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/RDC Clientand re-launch.I have to agree with Ryan. I bought my intel iMac soon after it is released, I have a gig of ram and I use it very frequently to connect to my work pc running windows 2003. It is usable, but the graphics is really slow. Each time I scroll any window, it flickers a lot to paint the window which is quite annoying. Planning to run Parallels and installing windows on my iMac.
Just a little update regarding my rdesktop/tsclient port for the Intel Mac; feedback has been quite positive — I’ve put up a proper webpage for the package and plan to keep working away at it.
http://desktopecho.com/tsclientx
A few people have been asking for a PPC version as well, I expect to get that done fairly soon.
Cheers,
D.
Pleasae email your reply…..I have a brand new macbook pro 15 inch with 2 ghx intel duo with 512 ram. rosetta doesn’t even load or work on mine, no rosetta option for powerpc porgrams either i have os x 10.4.7 with all updates. what is wrong
Core Duo 1 2Ghz, 1gb ram, 15.4″ Macbook Pro running OSX 10.4.8.
MS version is as sluggish as a dog, installed it last week. Bring on rdesktop.
I’m seeing the same symptoms that you are Ryan, and while it is running, I have slight problems with graphics and connecting is very slow but once its running its acceptable.
Ahh…vindication. It’s not just me. Thankyou Luke.
Hi - I’m new to Macs, running an Intel Mac. What I’m trying to find is a way to remote desktop onto my home Mac from my office PC via a web browser. There’s times when I want to access stuff at home but don’t want to wait until I leave the office. Any ideas?
MS RDC client working OK on a core 2 duo 2.33/3gb here. It’s not fantastic but I don’t need to use it that often.
I have been flipping back an forth between DanM’s TSClient/rdesktop and the dated MS RDC on my Intel 2.16 core duo Macbook Pro with 2gig. I have also used a compiled version of rdesktop. Rdesktop will simply freeze on me and I have to killl X11 and restart it. It does the same with either my compiled version or DanM’s version. MS RDC works slightly better in that it supports local drive mapping though it will frequently freeze for 10 to 15 sec intervals every time I fill the copy buffer on the remote computer. Copying between My MacOS and the TS sessions seems to be hit and miss too. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I spend lots of time in TS sessions doing admin tasks.
All very nice folks, but has anybody of you tried to print to a redirected printer (locally attached to your Intel based Mac)?
RDC crashes with no fail.
From my experience on RDC with a PowerPC the remote desktop will only print to a client printer on the Mac side if it uses PostScript drivers.
For example I tried to print to my Espson CX5200 connected via USB to my G4/400 tower with no joy but when I connected to my GCC laser printer that had PS facility via ethernet connection everything worked fine.
Backslash key - can anyone please tell me me how to type a backslah in MS RDC so it comes up as backslash on a PC? The Mac backslash key always produces # (hash/pound) for me.
I use MS RDC from my 2GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook to log onto PCs in the office where I work and to the same machines remotely from home via ADSL and it all works OK - but I’m not a power user.
Re: printing to redirected printer on Intel based Mac from RDC session on Win2K3 Terminal Server. I’ve recently set up a Win2K3 terminal server for a client and one of the users connects to the TS w/her Intel based Mac laptop (MacBook?). Similar to the previous post by Dennis, any attempt to print to a redirected printer on her Mac crashes the RDC session. I notice on Microsoft’s web site that their RDC client only supports printing to PowerPC based Macs, and that their current RDC Client for the Mac is three years old (Oct. 2004). Following an earlier post in this blog I find mention of Bonjour for Windows, but can find no indication of compatiblity with Win2K3 Terminal Server. All of our remote RDC sessions are using MS PPTP VPN to connect to the local network where the terminal server is located. Anybody here using Bonjour for Windows on a terminal server?
just a quick note — you should all checkout CoRD!
http://cord.sourceforge.net/
Awesome, thanks!
HELP!!! Got an intel-based mac mini and desperately want to install the MS RDC on my rig. Downloaded it but it will not mount.
What the fuck can I do?
Even after installig Cord, using Intel Mac and an MS RDC,i was not able to print on a local printer. what can i do?
After trying out TSClient, http://desktopecho.com/tsclientx/ I can confirm that Microsoft’s RDC client is noticeably slower than the alternatives. If I had the patience, I would let rdesktop compile and try that out.
WOW! Glad I decided to read some of these comments. CoRD rocks! Thanks katsu!
MS rdesktop is sooo slow on the mac. I have 7 intel imacs that need to connect to the terminal servers to do most of there work, but corporate said we had to have these macs…anyways the graphics is terrible. The users run programs like photoshop and office apps. The photoshop is almost unusable in my opinion. Thats why I am looking for an alternative.
I was just watching a user wait for the image to repaint that she was working on in Photoshop and asked her if it always did that, and she said ya, I thought the terminal server was just busy. I showed her my thin client with 64 megs of ram and no hard drive and zoomed in and out, cropped no problem, thats running rdesktop and linux. I then tried from a windows box, celeron 800 with 512 ram and xp (yes very slow machine) but the remote desktop had no lag at all with the same photoshop files.
The intel macs are slow, but it’s gotta be the MS client for macs thats causing the problem. Why doesn’t apple give you a remote desktop client to connect to windows that works, instead of relying on Microsoft.
It seems to be mainly the intel macs that people are complaining about.
I am using RDC(beta 3) and running a PC session full screen in 1600×1200 on one of my leopard ’spaces.’
I am running with all the performance sapping features turned on, full screen drag, millions of colours; the XP theme on the machine that I am attached to; the desktop background on; and while it is not ’snappy’ it it runs well enough for me to edit Visio documents and use office 2007 with no problems at all.
Its a bit like turning the video acceleration off on the PC but not quite that bad.
I am not one of those nuts who thinks VPC7 is in any way ok to use, and I am more than happy with this.
I have the target PC and my MAC running over a Gigabit switch; but to be honest the bandwidth is low anyway.
One thing that will kill my G5 1.6Ghz is running windows media player with the visual display turned on in RDC. That just uses 100% of my Macs lone and lame IBM CPU.
But who would do that anyway?
So my low end G5 power mac is just fine with RDC.
Since the slowest intel MACs are meant to leave my old G5 floundering in the dust; I am amazed to hear they are slow at this.
I set my MacBook Pro up wih a BootCamp dual Boot - so I can run the Mac RDP or the Windows RDP to work on the desktop in my office from my MacBook.
You’d think running RDP from the “PC side” would run better, but in actuality, running the Mac version seems faster, and I dont experience the random network disconnects that I’ve always experienced going PC to PC with RDP. Strange but true. In my case anyway.
I’ve just installed RDC 2 on my Intel Dual Core MacBook and it spontaneously quits after I hit ‘ok’ on the login credentials screen.
Poor.
Looks like I’ll be building that BootCamp partition after all.