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I administer a number of Windows machines, and am trying to find a really good application to remote desktop in to them from my Mac. I've tried CoRD, and I really like its library approach to saved sessions (as opposed to Microsoft's file based approach), and tabbed sessions are great when working on a bunch of machines. Unfortunately, it's just too buggy for serious use, and given that it averages less than 2 releases a year, I have little hope that that will change. Microsoft's official client is very bare bones and doesn't support connecting on non-standard ports (which I need).

Is there a remote desktop client for Mac out there that's both fully featured and not buggy?

Edit: Apparently the Microsoft doc I read that states that the Microsoft RDC client can't be used on non-standard ports is out of date.

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I'd given up on CoRD myself, and gone with the standard MS RDC client. And, as you've since discovered, it works fine with non-standard ports (I don't think I have a 'standard' port anywhere in the entire estate!). – robsoft Oct 5 '10 at 8:02
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I seem to be able to use non-standard ports without any problem, and I'm using version 2.0.0 of Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection. Just enter machinename.domain:port in the connection field of RDC. – jgubby Oct 5 '10 at 16:47
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Microsoft's client works OK for displaying stuff, but I'm getting the mouse buttons reversed — when I do a left-click, it's like a right-click when it gets to the Windows 7 box. – David Dunham Jan 4 '12 at 21:19
@David See stanford.edu/group/macosxsig/blog/2010/12/…. Worked a charm for me, once I found the property! (swapMouseButtons… something) – Arlen Feb 29 '12 at 1:58
I've used cord quite a bit. Works fine for plain rdc. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Feb 23 at 0:17
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6 Answers

up vote 19 down vote accepted

Use RDC (Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2)
This free download runs natively on both Intel-based and PowerPC-based Macs

Use One Mac, unlimited Windows.

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According to support.microsoft.com/kb/306759, the Mac client won't work with non-default port numbers, which for me is a fatal flaw. However, I decided to try it anyway, and sure enough, it worked. Thanks. – Warren Pena Oct 4 '10 at 22:22
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ya i do it all the time just by adding ":<portnumber>" onto the end – Robert S Ciaccio Oct 6 '10 at 18:10
@Warren Also you can type in the servername /console to get access to the running admin console. – Diago Oct 7 '10 at 11:49
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I'm very happy with RDC as well. It isn't completely stable on OS X 10.7 - I have had several crashes and broken connections already, even on the local network - but most of the time, it's working well, and it's free. – Pekka 웃 Mar 13 '12 at 21:02
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Official from Microsoft website: "Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac (version 2.1.1) is not intended for use with Mac OS X v10.7 (Lion) or later". That's a shame!!! And we almost have 10.8.1 released :p – Sorin Sbarnea Aug 21 '12 at 9:57
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up vote 8 down vote

I use a program called CoRD from http://cord.sf.net/

It's worked well for me without fussing with any configuration files or properties.

It's been a while since I tried any alternatives, so I'll give RDC another try. I don't remember why I rejected it before.

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+1 for CoRD, I prefer this one to RDC since it's simplify interface and easier to manage connections :) – Vdt Dec 13 '12 at 21:21
up vote 0 down vote

If you are willing to spend some money, there is LogMeIn, which I have used for my home Macs with great success. On the free side, we used to use "Chicken of the VNC" but decided to go with Microsoft's official client for reasons unknown to me. Six of one half dozen of the other, if you ask me. Frankly, the VNC market is pretty banal.

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There is a free version of Logmein. – Harv Jul 18 '11 at 20:07
OS X use VNC, Windows use RDP – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Apr 13 at 17:37
up vote 0 down vote

The best RDP client for OSX (whether free or not) is Thinomenon RDC. It supports audio, printing, scanning, and most importantly, RemoteApp/RAIL.

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I disagree... Thinomenon didn't provide access to local drives. Nor does it solve any issues I had with MS RDP such as keymappings not working in all cases... Command + C can't be used as a replacement for CTRL+Z in all applications. – blak3r Sep 12 '12 at 4:15
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For me, drive mapping and device redirection are working flawlessly. Did you try contacting Thinomenon support? The product is backed by a commercial entity. I would go for tech assistance. For instance, there is a support forum at thinomenon.com/forum – jeremy Sep 16 '12 at 10:40
Welcome to Ask Different! Answers on Ask Different need to be more than just a link. It's okay to include a link, but please summarize or excerpt it in the answer. Please take a look at the FAQs for more info. – gentmatt Sep 26 '12 at 12:13
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In my experienced opinion, CoRD and Jump Desktop are the best RDP clients for Mac. CoRD is more for those that know what they're doing - it's simple, stable, fast and reliable. Jump Desktop however is for those that are new to Remote Desktop Connections and want something that makes things easy. It's easily the slickest RDP client for Mac too and looks great. There's a useful extensive review of the best RDP clients for Mac here: http://machow2.com/rdp-for-mac/

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up vote -1 down vote

I use Real VNC. It works really well for me.

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They asked about Microsoft RDP, not VNc. – kinokijuf Dec 1 '11 at 8:49

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