CoRD

May 31st, 2007

Although I try to avoid it, my work generally entails a lot of mucking around with Windows machines. On my venerable old PowerBook G4, I would use Microsoft’s own Remote Desktop Connection Client. Version 1.03 of course, which hasn’t been updated in nearly three years. It doesn’t come quite as feature-rich as the native Windows version, of course, but it was serviceable.

After my switch to an Intel-based Mac, however, MS’s RDP client just fails for me. It seemed my only options were:

1. Wait for Microsoft to update their RDP client (unlikely)
2. Use X11 and rdesktop (unwieldy)
3. Use Parallels and run a virtual XP

I chose option three because having Parallels around means access to other useful things, such as viewing web projects in finicky IE, and the ability to reinstall UT2k4 on Windows from a friend’s disc when my own Mac DVD got too scratched to work. However, I kept finding myself booting up Windows for the express purpose of RDP’ing into another machine. Hardly an elegant solution.

Enter CoRD, “Cocoa Remote Desktop”, which is a native OS X version of the above-mentioned rdesktop. It’s only in a 0.4 version at the moment, but is already more utilitarian than the old MS version, even if the screen render ain’t quite as pretty. I’ve been hoping someone with the knowhow would put this together, it’s going to be a huge timesaver.

Entry Filed under: Networking