We first made RDC 2 available as a public beta about a year ago. Our beta users stepped up to the challenge: you guys had more than 750,000 downloads of the various betas, and you offered us tons of great feedback — about 500 pieces of feedback that were submitted to our beta site. About 30% of this feedback were new unique bugs that we fixed. (The rest, in case you're curious, consisted mostly of suggestions for additional features or repeats of bugs that had already been submitted.)
Your participation in our beta was a huge help to us. After the release of the third beta, some of our non-English users started reporting that they couldn't connect to Vista boxes that they had been able to connect to using our previous betas. The details that you provided to us about your set-up, especially when you included all of the details about all of your hardware, software, and network connections, were instrumental to figuring out the underlying problem. Without your bug reports, we wouldn't have been able to track down this issue as quickly and efficiently as we did. So thanks for your help — and if you were one of the people who experienced that issue should download today!
I have to admit, my favourite feature in RDC 2 is the feature that I had been advocating for (yes, yes, I'm proud of my baby!). When we decided to update RDC 2 with a brand-new UI, I went into my usability lab and did a study. One thing I noticed that tripped up users every time was the keyboard shortcuts for cut/copy/paste. Users would copy something from their Mac using the shortcut command-C, then they'd try to paste it into Windows via RDC 1 using command-V. Most people realised instantly that they needed to do control-V instead because they were in Windows. In fact, when I asked these users about it afterwards, they hadn't even noticed that they'd tried to do two keyboard shortcuts (first command-V, then control-V) instead of just one. When the RDC team sat down and started to map out what we would do in RDC 2, that was one of my top requests: let's automatically map the keyboard shortcuts for cut/copy/paste. These shortcuts are so commonly used, and are identical across the OSes, so we might as well not force users to remember which OS they're in to be able to do those commands.
Hope you guys like RDC 2! If you notice something about RDC 2 and want to send us feedback about it, there's a couple of different ways that you can do it. When you're in RDC 2, click on the Help menu, then on "Send Feedback about Remote Desktop Connection". You can also do it directly on our website.
Well done guys. Is is me, or do the connection times seem significantly faster than in the beta? Quite zippy.
Jean-Luc
Jul 07, 2008
12:15pm
Last problem on the french numeric keypad
The ',' on the numeric keypad prints a ";" on the final RDC 2. Every things else works well.
GregA
Jul 07, 2008
4:53pm
Sharing FileVault protected Home Folders
It would appear that it is not possible to share Mac Home Folders protected with FileVault with a Remote Desktop session. I'm quite sure this worked with the previous version of RDC...
DaveC
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
Annoying dialog when connecting to XP
Is there any way to turn off the annoying dialog that comes up every time I connect to any computer running XP? This dialog really needs a "don't show again" checkbox.
rgwillia
Jul 23, 2008
2:51pm
Do you want to save?
One of the small annoyances that appeared when I went from Beta 1 to Beta 2 was that when I close RDC, it always prompts if I want to save the session. I setup defaults that I want to use no matter what server I connect to. (and I connect to a lot of them) The default.rdp loads up with the one I use the most but then I change the name and connect to the one I want. It is annoying that I have to tell it not to save default.rdp every time I close it. I can understand it doing this if it was not the default file.
doublel
Aug 20, 2008
2:13pm
Clicking sound every half second
When I login, the standard login audio of the windows computer I'm connecting to plays on my MacBook, but there is a clicking noise every half second until the sound is done. Sounds like an old scratchy record which skips. Has anyone else seen this problem? The current workaround I have is to just turn off audio entirely in the RDC2 preferences. Does anybody have any ideas what might be the culprit?
DaveLinCT
Jul 02, 2008
12:05pm
Remote Desktop Connection for iPhone
Are you working on or planning a Remote Desktop Connection for the iPhone?
John Lockwood
Jul 02, 2008
12:08pm
Congrats to Microsoft
I am certainly not adverse to criticising Microsoft when they deserve it (which alas is still too often), but I must say Microsoft do this time deserve some applause for the new RDC 2. This follows their [finally] shipping the Open XML plugin for Office 2004 and it working the right way by being integrated within Word etc. the beta was not integrated meaning to had to manually translate files to RTF and then open them with Word, so the fact it was shipped as a 'proper' solution was a pleasant surprise.
I just tried RDC 2 and it does indeed fix a hugely annoying bug dating back all the way to RDC 1.0 over five years ago. It does now correctly work with non US keyboard layouts. For example on a Mac with a UK keyboard I can type @ and Windows at the other end (also with a UK keyboard) produces a @, likewise for " at both ends, and very importantly I can now for the first time actually send a backslash \ to the Windows machine (we all know how important backslashes are in Windows).
This bug is one that has been shared by practically all software that links Mac and Windows together, for example Netopia's Timbuktu, VirtualPC, Parallels, and originally Apple's Boot Camp.
Apple did fix Boot Camp rapidly (a mere few months), but it is the best part of a decade since I informed Netopia, and they STILL have not fixed it. So Microsoft 'only' taking five years deserve congratulations.
Note: VNC never suffered this bug since unlike all the others it was not written by Americans.
Other than the curing of this keyboard layout issue, I would also congratulate Microsoft over the fact it seems stable, reasonable attractive in appearance, has good performance, and mostly a good Mac citizen.
Chad
Jul 02, 2008
12:09pm
Congrats
Congratulations! RDC is my favorite Microsoft app, so it's nice to see that it has finally been released. I originally expected that it would have been finished and released with Office 2008, but it wasn't to be. But since Beta 2, RDC has been pretty useable, and I've been using it to connect to XP boxes (and a single Vista machine).
@Dave - If you want to connect to more than one Windows-based computer at a time, you can save a connection file for each computer that you connect to. Each connection file can have a different set of preferences, such as automatic login credentials, screen size, and display options. You can quickly connect to the computer that you want by opening its connection file.
The same information is available in the RDC help files, search for "connect to multiple computers". If that doesn't have the information you're looking for, you can use the RDC help to submit feedback to us to tell us what information we're missing in our help.
SergT
Jul 02, 2008
5:03pm
Re: RDC 2 is out of beta and available today!
Microsoft, Congratulations from Russia! Thx for RDC!
poster
Jul 03, 2008
2:07pm
Cong, great job, RDC team!
Wow, it is unbelivable! Microsoft, you guys ship RDC 2 so fast with high quality, I'm using it everyday!
p26963
Jul 07, 2008
10:42am
Still Can't Login to Cached Domain Account
I was hoping that I would be able to login to my Windows Vista laptop using my cached domain account but sorry to say that did not happen. I use a cached domain account when logging into my laptop when I'm off of the corporate network. After I login on the laptop manually everything works fine. But after a restart or starting up in the morning, trying to RD at the login screen using my cached domain account does not work. Using a local account on the laptop works.
@p26963 - That's a limitation of the Remote Desktop Protocol. If you were to try to do the same thing on Vista's RDC, you'd find that it operates in the same manner.
Darren Davies
Jul 07, 2008
10:58am
RDC 2 is finally here, and it is excellent!
I learnt RDC2 had been released from the 'Mac my Day' news feed. I quickly downloaded it and was extremely pleased when the already nippy app ran noticeably faster. This is one of the best MS apps I have used.
Now all I need is a top resolution of 1600x1200 so that I can run RDC connections in full screen in a virtual desktop space at the native resolution of my panel.
I've not found any issues yet while working with a range of Windows machines running Server 2003, XP and Vista.
This software is more important than many realize, as it allows the Mac to slot into the corporate world with ease. A massive well done, all round.
Richard Walker
Jul 07, 2008
12:10pm
Keyboard issues
The key question... does this solve the various issues with non-US keyboards? In the UK, it is impossible to obtain a backslash character!
A slightly less key question: is there support for multiple sessions without multiple copies of the client launching?
steven
Jul 07, 2008
12:10pm
You guys just don't get it :(
I think it's truly bizarre in this age of multithreading and advanced virtualization for the app to only allow multiple sessions through RDC via running multiple instances of it.
Eloy
Jul 07, 2008
12:11pm
It works but...
It would be a nice feature if I could enter the resolution myself in the preferences, without editing the rdc-files. In this way it would be easier to use a 1024x752 resolution witch is the perfect for my 13" Macbook.
The @ and € key-mapping on my Swiss-German keyboard are not working. I have to press "Alt + Ctrl + 2" for "@" and ""Alt + Ctrl + e" for "€" instead of "Alt + g" or "Alt + e".
Wim
Jul 07, 2008
12:11pm
wrong keys with RDC 2.0
This is probably not the appropriate place but I cannot find another place to post this.
I've installed RCD 2.0 and it looks good. However there is something wrong with my keyboard configuration. Pressing the - key displays / and vice versa. There are more keys that don't give the right character.
I've tried both the Dutch and Englisch versions of RDC 2.0.
RDC 1.0.3 did not have this problem. The only thing that has changed is the installation of RDC 2.0.
I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Dutch) and connect to Windows XP SP2 (Dutch). I'm using a international keyboard on the Mac.
pete
Jul 07, 2008
12:11pm
azerty keyboards are not supported ?
connecting to a server changes the keyboard layout to qwerty.
Is azerty not supported anymore ?
@GregA - That's correct, folders protected using FileVault aren't able to be shared with RDC.
Paul
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
Terminal Services
Will it now allow for Terminal Services Connections?
Lieven Dekeyser
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
Other keyboard shortcuts
For people that have always used Macs, the command-key is what we're used to for all keyboard short cuts. Being able to use it for cut/copy/paste is fine, but it's actually quite confusing that these work, while other shortcuts still require us to use the control-key.
The option to swap control and command keys would make my life a lot easier.
Steve B
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
Mouse handedness is broken!
I've submitted this to feedback for the beta and just now on the feedback page. I cannot understand why you removed or broke the ability of the RDC client to pass the mouse button config or handedness over to the remote desktop. I have my mouse setup for lefthanded use and all other remote desktop clients preserve the settings when connecting to remote machines, the old RDC client did, the current windows client does, ARD does, VNC does. The only one that's broken is the Current Mac RDC client. Setting the mouse settings on the server is not an acceptable answer to the problem. I'm not the only admin on the windows boxes and I shouldn't have to set/reset control panel settings due to a lousy implementation on your part. It's another case of the MacBU being out of step with the reset of Microsoft AND the world of remote desktop clients.
Nathan
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
RDC2 is great - but mouse buttons still reversed
Have had this problem in each beta of RDC2 also. Within the RDP session, my mouse buttons are reversed.
Have tried:
- toggling the secondary mouse option within RDC.
- disabling secondary click in my Macbook's system preferences
- connection USB mouse
closingaguada
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
Does it work for iMac powered with Intel Duo Core?
The system requirements say PowerPC. Just curious if it works with Intel-based iMacs.
Alexey Goldbergs
Jul 23, 2008
2:51pm
New features
Is it support new features in Windows Server 2008 like RemoteApp, Terminal Service Gateway, Easy Print, Display data prioritization, etc.?
Genevieve
Jul 23, 2008
2:51pm
Seamless / Unity / Coherence desktop less window mode RDC
What would be HUGE, would be to have the windows not noxed in a RDC window but as free as Mac windows, likle the coherence mode in paralel or the unity mode in VM ware.
Let me drop in a quick note here as I contributed to the spec on the keyboard layout functionality. This is one feature that I really wanted to see fixed since RDC 1.0 since I use a French Canadian keyboard layout and it resulted in either defaulting to French in Windows or US mapping.
Ideally, we would have liked to support all keyboard layouts supported in the International System Preferences. But technically, we cannot detect all the different physical keyboard types connected to the Mac. We can only get three different keyboard types: English, ISO, and JIS. ISO corresponds to all European keyboards. What we are doing now is: if we detect an ISO keyboard, we use IME setting on the Mac to set keyboard mapping between the Mac and Windows.
Each keyboard had to be mapped manually - by brute force – because of time constraint, we couldn't support all the keyboards so we needed to decide which keyboard to support so, as released, here are the keyboard layout supported:
Mac British mapped to Windows British
Mac Dutch -> Windows Dutch
Mac Italian -> Windows Italian
Mac Italian pro -> Windows Italian
Mac French -> Windows French
Mac French Swiss -> Windows French Swiss
Mac French Canadian -> Windows French Canadian
Mac Germany -> Windows Germany
Mac Germany Swiss -> Windows Germany Swiss
Mac Swedish -> Windows Swedish
Mac Swedish pro -> Windows Swedish
Mac Spanish -> Windows Spanish International
Mac Spanish ISO -> Windows Spanish International
If an unsupported keyboard value is selected on the Input Menu, RDC will default to US English setting. It can then be changed on the Windows side
Although, not all keyboard configuration are supported, we are in a much better position than we were in RDC 1.0!
Comments | Who's Blogging This
Eric Anderson
Jul 03, 2008
2:07pm
Well done
Jean-Luc
Jul 07, 2008
12:15pm
Last problem on the french numeric keypad
GregA
Jul 07, 2008
4:53pm
Sharing FileVault protected Home Folders
DaveC
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
Annoying dialog when connecting to XP
rgwillia
Jul 23, 2008
2:51pm
Do you want to save?
doublel
Aug 20, 2008
2:13pm
Clicking sound every half second
DaveLinCT
Jul 02, 2008
12:05pm
Remote Desktop Connection for iPhone
John Lockwood
Jul 02, 2008
12:08pm
Congrats to Microsoft
I just tried RDC 2 and it does indeed fix a hugely annoying bug dating back all the way to RDC 1.0 over five years ago. It does now correctly work with non US keyboard layouts. For example on a Mac with a UK keyboard I can type @ and Windows at the other end (also with a UK keyboard) produces a @, likewise for " at both ends, and very importantly I can now for the first time actually send a backslash \ to the Windows machine (we all know how important backslashes are in Windows).
This bug is one that has been shared by practically all software that links Mac and Windows together, for example Netopia's Timbuktu, VirtualPC, Parallels, and originally Apple's Boot Camp.
Apple did fix Boot Camp rapidly (a mere few months), but it is the best part of a decade since I informed Netopia, and they STILL have not fixed it. So Microsoft 'only' taking five years deserve congratulations.
Note: VNC never suffered this bug since unlike all the others it was not written by Americans.
Other than the curing of this keyboard layout issue, I would also congratulate Microsoft over the fact it seems stable, reasonable attractive in appearance, has good performance, and mostly a good Mac citizen.
Chad
Jul 02, 2008
12:09pm
Congrats
Dustin
Jul 02, 2008
12:09pm
Great!
Nadyne Mielke
Jul 02, 2008
12:11pm
Re: RDC 2 is out of beta and available today!
Dave
Jul 02, 2008
1:37pm
WTF... no way to bookmark
Nadyne Mielke
Jul 02, 2008
1:40pm
Re: RDC 2 is out of beta and available today!
You can learn more about how to set that up here:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/help.mspx?target=d17dace4-91b6-4f80-a9a3-64d9a8468c861033&clr=99-6-0&ep=8&rtype=2&pos=3&quid=905bc3b0-03ca-48ee-bc44-4e8fff6f5727&CTT=Search&MODE=ct&locale=en-US&usid=b6ff116c-55ad-43f6-bf14-c04b508f9c8e
The same information is available in the RDC help files, search for "connect to multiple computers". If that doesn't have the information you're looking for, you can use the RDC help to submit feedback to us to tell us what information we're missing in our help.
SergT
Jul 02, 2008
5:03pm
Re: RDC 2 is out of beta and available today!
poster
Jul 03, 2008
2:07pm
Cong, great job, RDC team!
p26963
Jul 07, 2008
10:42am
Still Can't Login to Cached Domain Account
Others have this problem?
Nadyne Mielke
Jul 07, 2008
10:56am
Re: RDC 2 is out of beta and available today!
Darren Davies
Jul 07, 2008
10:58am
RDC 2 is finally here, and it is excellent!
Now all I need is a top resolution of 1600x1200 so that I can run RDC connections in full screen in a virtual desktop space at the native resolution of my panel.
I've not found any issues yet while working with a range of Windows machines running Server 2003, XP and Vista.
This software is more important than many realize, as it allows the Mac to slot into the corporate world with ease. A massive well done, all round.
Richard Walker
Jul 07, 2008
12:10pm
Keyboard issues
A slightly less key question: is there support for multiple sessions without multiple copies of the client launching?
steven
Jul 07, 2008
12:10pm
You guys just don't get it :(
Eloy
Jul 07, 2008
12:11pm
It works but...
The @ and € key-mapping on my Swiss-German keyboard are not working. I have to press "Alt + Ctrl + 2" for "@" and ""Alt + Ctrl + e" for "€" instead of "Alt + g" or "Alt + e".
Wim
Jul 07, 2008
12:11pm
wrong keys with RDC 2.0
I've installed RCD 2.0 and it looks good. However there is something wrong with my keyboard configuration. Pressing the - key displays / and vice versa. There are more keys that don't give the right character.
I've tried both the Dutch and Englisch versions of RDC 2.0.
RDC 1.0.3 did not have this problem. The only thing that has changed is the installation of RDC 2.0.
I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Dutch) and connect to Windows XP SP2 (Dutch). I'm using a international keyboard on the Mac.
pete
Jul 07, 2008
12:11pm
azerty keyboards are not supported ?
Is azerty not supported anymore ?
j
Jul 07, 2008
12:11pm
foreign keyboard support
Nadyne Mielke
Jul 07, 2008
5:00pm
Re: RDC 2 is out of beta and available today!
Paul
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
Terminal Services
Lieven Dekeyser
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
Other keyboard shortcuts
The option to swap control and command keys would make my life a lot easier.
Steve B
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
Mouse handedness is broken!
Nathan
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
RDC2 is great - but mouse buttons still reversed
Have tried:
- toggling the secondary mouse option within RDC.
- disabling secondary click in my Macbook's system preferences
- connection USB mouse
closingaguada
Jul 11, 2008
1:53pm
Does it work for iMac powered with Intel Duo Core?
Alexey Goldbergs
Jul 23, 2008
2:51pm
New features
Genevieve
Jul 23, 2008
2:51pm
Seamless / Unity / Coherence desktop less window mode RDC
This would be a HUGE time saver.
Eric Paquin
Jul 28, 2008
9:58am
Having European keyboard mapping issues?
Let me drop in a quick note here as I contributed to the spec on the keyboard layout functionality. This is one feature that I really wanted to see fixed since RDC 1.0 since I use a French Canadian keyboard layout and it resulted in either defaulting to French in Windows or US mapping.
Ideally, we would have liked to support all keyboard layouts supported in the International System Preferences. But technically, we cannot detect all the different physical keyboard types connected to the Mac. We can only get three different keyboard types: English, ISO, and JIS. ISO corresponds to all European keyboards. What we are doing now is: if we detect an ISO keyboard, we use IME setting on the Mac to set keyboard mapping between the Mac and Windows.
Each keyboard had to be mapped manually - by brute force
Mac British mapped to Windows British
Mac Dutch -> Windows Dutch
Mac Italian -> Windows Italian
Mac Italian pro -> Windows Italian
Mac French -> Windows French
Mac French Swiss -> Windows French Swiss
Mac French Canadian -> Windows French Canadian
Mac Germany -> Windows Germany
Mac Germany Swiss -> Windows Germany Swiss
Mac Swedish -> Windows Swedish
Mac Swedish pro -> Windows Swedish
Mac Spanish -> Windows Spanish International
Mac Spanish ISO -> Windows Spanish International
If an unsupported keyboard value is selected on the Input Menu, RDC will default to US English setting. It can then be changed on the Windows side
Although, not all keyboard configuration are supported, we are in a much better position than we were in RDC 1.0!