Mac takes control of Windows!

July 18, 2002 2:08 PM

Mac takes control of Windows! A very useful addition to the Mac desktop for those who administer Windows-based servers. This handy utility allows you to start a Terminal Services session on a Windows machine.

This and a nice X Windows client lets my little 'ol iBook show the big iron who's the boss!
posted by Chief Typist (13 comments total)

oh thank god! finalmente!

I have virtual pc on my TiBook only so I can boot into win2k and run term services. Due to activex trickery, I could never get browser-based java admins to connect on the mac side. Now I can save the five minutes it takes to boot into virtual pc and connect to servers directly.

Now I wonder if the various apps out there that let you do file transfers over terminal services would work on the mac client as well.
posted by mathowie at 2:14 PM on July 18, 2002

this other thing has been around for quite some time...
posted by dorian at 2:17 PM on July 18, 2002

Matt, I don't understand a word you just said, but I'm happy that it makes you happy.
posted by ColdChef at 2:19 PM on July 18, 2002

Yeah, matt, I thought you'd appreciate this link. This little piece of software is going to kill a lot of VPC sales.

Haven't tried any of the file transfer stuff, but I find that with the nice SMB support in Mac OS X, I can do everything with shares.

With VPN support coming soon things are just going to get better...
posted by Chief Typist at 2:25 PM on July 18, 2002

OS X rocks, simple as that. And Microsoft has been a surprisingly good Citizen X, its laggard development of IE notwithstanding.
posted by donkeyschlong at 2:30 PM on July 18, 2002

and Messenger. Just sayin'.
posted by mblandi at 2:44 PM on July 18, 2002

Let's just hope that this isn't Microsoft's excuse for the lack of an OSX native version of Outlook. I really hope this gets taken to the next level, and like what Citrix is doing, have Microsoft create a transparent terminal services app environment with aqua windowing. Anyone else think that this is a sneaky way to undermine the hell out of Apple's new server platform?
posted by machaus at 2:52 PM on July 18, 2002

This isn't obvious or anything.

And yes, you can use VNC with any version of windows/mac/palm/whatever.
posted by delmoi at 2:56 PM on July 18, 2002

Just for the record, XFree86 is an X server, not a client. X is funny that way...
posted by shinybeast at 3:27 PM on July 18, 2002

"file transfers over terminal services would work on the mac client as well."

not too well informed about your particular issue matt, but i transfer files from my mac to my server via scp on nifty which works fine.
posted by dabitch at 3:52 PM on July 18, 2002

wops. didn't read too well. didn't think about a NTserver. my bad. good tip for any linux/old mac/new mac admins tho.
posted by dabitch at 5:31 PM on July 18, 2002

I have virtual pc on my TiBook only so I can boot into win2k and run term services.

rdesktop under X Windows (which you can run on Mac OS X) has much better performance than Virtual PC, although it's a bit... finicky at some things.

Microsoft's official client would be cooler if it didn't quit on me every five minutes. Oh, and if, when I launch it by opening a saved connection file, it let me use the keyboard and stuff.

What we have here are two half-assed RDP clients, which, since they are half-assed in different ways, have between them an entire, complete ass. Unfortunately there is no way to make the twain meet.
posted by kindall at 6:09 PM on July 18, 2002

What we have here are two half-assed RDP clients

hmmm, no problems using the MSware here. But then again, I have no ass. I ran rdesktop for the two weeks before this MS release, and it worked pretty good as well. Here's my post that details some good links to follow if you want the abuse of compiling tarballs or have a Redmond complex...
posted by machaus at 8:38 PM on July 18, 2002