Microsoft Launches Remote Desktop App for Android and iOS | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Launches Remote Desktop App for Android and iOS

thenextweb.com

133 pointshackhackhack58 comments

A lot of people say this is no big deal because other solutions are available.

However a big value add that Microsoft has is really amazing performance with their remote desktop systems, compared to most other competitors.

Even when other companies use the same RDP protocol the performance is usually not as good, and things like VNC and TeamViewer have much lower refresh rates.

Other solutions have some unique features that are useful, but for pure performance it doesn't get much better than this.

Agreed (and upvoted).

I have yet to use any other remote desktop system that feels nearly as responsive as Microsoft's own RDP implementation, and I've used many. The others I've used are workable (especially over very fast links), but with every interaction there is just enough lag to continually remind you that you're running over a network connection, whereas Microsoft's RDP feels pretty much like running locally as long as you avoid gaming or high-frame-rate video.

I haven't tried their Android client yet, but I'm hoping it works nearly as well as their desktop implementation does.

Hmm, just curious, have you used rdesktop, http://www.rdesktop.org/? It's been incredibly fast for me.

I think the state of the art right now is Remmina, which allows you to connect to Windows 7 + systems. I dont know if rdesktop now allows you to do that, but (a year ago) earlier it didnt.

How so? I've used rdesktop to connect to a (patched) Windows 7 system more than two years ago.

This times a million. As a home worker, I spend over 2000 hours a year on an RDP connection. Wonderful tool.

Hey, hopefully you see this, but for some reason it appears that you have been hellbanned (all of your posts since two days ago are dead).

The other big deal is that an Official app means a lot more when talking to some management people. "We are using Microsoft software to talk to Microsoft software" is a pretty easy statement. Also, if you work at one of those places that have approved vendors[1] then this is great.

1) did that once, oh my but it was more bureaucratic than some government agencies

Now if they can do this in Linux, then I can use Mint or Ubuntu 100% and access my email without having to open my company device... just keep it handy.

You can use any number of remote desktop front ends for Mint/Ubuntu...rdesktop for starters. Beyond that, if your company's mail server is a recent version of exchange, or even MS's office365 service, you should be able to configure your email client of choice.

Haven't they just simply acquired one of the popular 3rd party RDP clients and rebranded it?

http://www.macworld.com/article/2053689/microsoft-taps-itap-...

My experience hasn't been so smooth on non-Windows machines: RDC for OSX is the only application that constantly crashes on my Mac.

Every second time I close it, it stops working and wants to send report to MS. Ridiculous.

I'm finding it really interesting that no one has mentioned that it looks like MS bought a company or their product for this solution:

http://itap-mobile.com/itap-rdp

"Important Update

Effective October 8th 2013, iTAP mobile RDP apps for iOS, Mac OS X and Android platforms are discontinued.

We will continue to support the customers who have installed this app up to this date but the app will no longer be available at the application stores and no further updates will be released.

We recommend you evaluate the new Microsoft Remote Desktop app available in app stores later this month.

Thank you for using iTAP mobile RDP.

Regards, iTap mobile team"

Anyone that used the iTap version may find some very similar interface design and an amazingly identical feature set (iTap was the only iOS and Android RDP client with RemoteFX support for instance - something this new MS client heavily touts).

I haven't seen official statement to this effect, it's just the timing, design, and feature set (like MS suddenly having an iOS, Android, and new OS X client) seem way too coincidental.

Edit: The new OS X app doesn't appear to share the code base of the old one, as the new one exports/imports actual PC .rdp configuration files whereas the original MS RDP client for OS X also makes ".rdp" files - but they're not in a format compatible with Windows Remote Desktop client or vice versa.

Edit: Microsoft confirms it bought the new code base from iTap:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2053689/microsoft-taps-itap-...

But is it available for Windows Phone?

Microsoft acquired iTap which offered Android, iOS, and OS X versions. I'm assuming we're probably seeing that same rebranded product which is why there isn't a Windows Phone option.

http://itap-mobile.com/desktop/rdp

Surprisingly enough, it is not. Looks like even Microsoft is now making apps for iOS and Android before making them for Windows Phone...

Good for Microsoft. This is a confident move, as when Google rolls out a app or feature on iOS before Android. I'm sure a Windows phone version is coming.

Microsoft needs to do more of this. Neither consumers nor the company benefits when people delay creating value for the sake paying an internal alignment tax,

Maybe they have groups making the apps separately and they're just releasing them as they're finished.

There has to be some kind of coordination as they did the same thing with recent updates to Skype. iOS and Android first then Windows Phone OS a month or so later.

Seems like bad messaging from Microsoft about the Windows Phone platform, an official RDP client isn't a make or break type app, there is no (apparent) compelling business reason not to hold back on iOS and Android so that the WP version could be released simultaneously. If Microsoft won't hold app releases until the WP version is ready to along with iOS and Android how can they expect anyone else to either?

This isn't actually a new development - the (wonderful) Photosynth mobile app started out on iOS before being ported anywhere else.

This just looks really bad. If even the maker of windows phone considers it the last platform to develop for, we shouldn't blame or expect more from other app developers. This just adds more reason for me to replace my windows phone with an iphone/android

This seems like a non-starter to me:

"You can connect to computers running Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, or Windows 7 Enterprise."

"You can't use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to computers running Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, or Windows 7 Home Premium." http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/remote-desktop-c...

Aren't the vast majority of Windows licenses out there ones that you can't connect to as a host in RDP?

That's not a limitation of the new apps, it's one of the differentiating features between versions of Windows. The big reasons to buy Windows Professional are for the disk encryption and RDP server.

It was always that way. Remote Desktop is probably used most by people connecting to work computers over VPN.

That's Microsoft all right. Remote desktop server is disabled on those SKUs for no apparent reason. One of reasons to hate Windows.

It's not for no apparent reason, and it's hardly a good reason to hate Windows. Got any more amazing insights you'd like to share with the group?

Hmm. If only it supported SSH tunnelling out of the box. Seriously, RDP is not exactly "safe", and SSH gateways are common in mixed shops. I use Jump Desktop because of that alone.

Setting up an inbound VPN connection is pretty trivial on Windows XP/7 Professional.

I'm not using Windows as a server - I'm using xrdp on Linux to access remote X sessions, since it's MUCH faster than any alternative (nomachine, vnc, etc.)

A VPN is pretty trivial on Linux too, running OpenVPN is just a matter of installing it, writing a simple config file (5-6 lines) and running the command.

I've set up a VPN connections between my Nexus and a VPS in less than 30m (I use OpenVPN for Android instead of the official client since the latter doesn't seem to support pre-shared keys).

OpenVPN on the other hand, keeps open connection for the entire duration of the session. It is pretty reliable way to kill your battery.

I'm using Strongswan client, it is IPSec just like the built in client, but more capable, including cert based authentication and MOBIKE.

RDP (as of Windows 7 iirc) supports TLS 1.0 negotiations...

Yeah, but xrdp doesn't. And there are plenty of exploits available for RDP servers of either flavor. I'd never leave RDP open on the Internet.

Is there still no way to use RDP without shutting down the host's monitor and local UI? I still run VNC just to avoid that.

There is a way - this is just a license limitation imposed by Microsoft to make their pricey server OSes an easier sell. However, you can fairly easily modify Win7 to allow for multiple logins [1].

[1] http://www.serverwatch.com/server-tutorials/how-to-enable-co...

RDP opens a remote session, it's not the same as sharing. It actual creates a new user session and redirects the video output.

I use TeamViewer personal edition to be able to access my computers from either at home or away. It's free and really convenient. Yesterday I was in San Diego and my mother-in-law couldn't figure out how to get a movie going for the kids. I used TeamViewer on my Android phone, logged into the HTPC, and got the movie playing in XBMC.

Not always -- my main use of RDP is to remotely access the primary session on my workstation. Microsoft also provides "Windows Remote Assistance" which is a mechanism for generating a code that you send to someone else, allowing them to connect to and view (and optionally control) your primary session while you're still using it.

Supposedly the built in 'Remote Assistance' feature gives you screen-sharing and uses the RDP protocol. I wouldn't expect it to work with this app, though.

I've actually had RDP completely corrupt my session. Like, after I disconnect the host just gives up the ghost. I walk over and give it the three-finger-salute and I can log into another session with another user, but when I try to switch back to my old session it's just blackness. I can't even RDP back in.

Happened with two different machines at my office. Surprising. I wouldn't be surprised if RDP isn't doing something entirely-too-clever with vram.

They don't do anything with VRAM. I think they switch win32k and other calls between RDPDD and the current display driver and automatically change the display settings, which can be a quite tricky task. Some links:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/963038 (this can be triggered by switching between 15-bit and 16-bit color)

http://www.nynaeve.net/?p=3

For me, this happens on win 2008 r2 machines, not on xp. It is very infuriating.

Pretty slick and usable for first version. A few more tweaks like ability to pan the desktop so you could actually click the close button on maximized windows would make it the perfect RDP client on Mobile. (I used PocketCloud for some time but the recent versions are not updated for some time and thus buggy at least with Android 4.3.)

Now if Microsoft would just update their RDC client for OS X...

They have! It's available on the Mac App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id7...

I do like the "set the resolution" feature that was absent in the old one.

yeah this was far bigger news to me than the iOS version

It hasn't been updated in a while, but CoRD has been my goto RDP client for a long time.

http://cord.sourceforge.net

the one posted above says that it has been released today ( https://itunes.apple.com/ro/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id7... )

Microsoft, you're more than a little late to the game. It'll have to really blow away Jump Desktop for me to bother using your app. Jump has a lot of very nice features, especially the one where it'll open an SSH tunnel for the RDC session to go through without me needing to launch another client first. It's perfect for setting up behind a router running DD-WRT or other variant, so the Remote Desktop port on my Windows box isn't exposed to the rest of the world.

Jump Desktop + ConnectBot for the ssh tunnel works well for me. I use it to bring up the desktop on my TV via an Android "mini PC"; vi on a TV is an interesting experience :-) Also great for reading pdfs.

works pretty well on my ipad mini connecting to windows 7. much more responsive than I expected.

is it an iPad native app?

It's in TFA. You should probably read it before asking.

I'd like to see them produce an official Chrome RDP app.

Would make me feel better about getting my wife a Chromebook if she could occasionally access Internet Explorer (dodgy training website requiring IE ONLY) over RDP to a VM running on a home server.

Chrome has its own Remote Desktop which allows it to connect to a Chrome server on another machine. It currently supports Windows and Mac as the remote desktop. Chromebooks are supported as one of the clients.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote-desk...

There is a chromebook remote desktop app made by Google. Not sure how good it is since I've never tried, but heard good things.

Side note: I really wish Apple similarly supported remote desktop in "Back to My Mac" on the iPad. I think would spend a whole lot more time doing work on my iPad with keyboard rather than lugging my 2 year old MBP around.

I clicked through in a hurry to download it, as I am sure it will be a high-quality RDP client implementation, but then I remembered I have no PCs running Windows any more (and neither does my immediate family).

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