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Replace Microsoft’s Expired Remote Desktop for Mac with CoRD

April 1, 2008


I manage somewhere around a dozen servers running Windows 2003 Server, so I use the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection feature constantly. However, I don’t use their Mac client — it’s buggy, it’s slow, and it’s limited. And as of yesterday, it’s expired.

Of course, there IS no newer copy available from Microsoft. The RDC does still sort of work, it just turns off even more features. But hey, that’s the good news — because if you’ve been suffering along with Microsoft’s RDC client on a Mac, you now have a perfect excuse to replace it with CoRD.

CoRD is a freeware Remote Desktop Client for OS X. It’s faster, far less buggy, and has more features (features that I need anyway) than Microsoft’s RDC client had even before it expired.

CoRD just works. It has a server drawer that remembers all of your connections, and you can have as many servers open simultaneously as you want. It will allow you to specify whether you want a normal RDC session or whether you want to connect to the console session, along with window size, color depth and the usual performance settings. It also supports cut and paste between OS X and the server.

There is a new beta out that offers support for connecting drivers and printers, which is not something I do (FTP FTW), so I haven’t tried it, but it’s available if you need it.

If you RDC on a Mac, you need to give CoRD a try — it’s a substantial improvement over what Microsoft is shoveling (and not updating).

CoRD Remote Desktop Client for OS X

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Written by Chuck Lawson · Filed Under Tech 
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