Using OS X for (mainly) RDP and Server 2K + 2K3 support

[Fraggable]

I've been thinking about getting a Macbook Pro fro a while now, I have a Macbook and love it, the OS is awesome and reliability is so much better than XP or Vista. Plus the Macbook Pros are just plain sweet.

The one thing holding me back is RDP. I am a network technician for an IT consulting company and I do a lot (4+ hours/day) of remote desktop support into Win 2K and 2K3 servers. I don't know of any full-featured RDP programs that work on OS X. I have one that I use on my macbook but it's very basic, doesn't work with the clipboard, won't support over 640 X 480 res, etc.

Is my only option to run something like VMWare Fusion or Parallels? I would really prefer not to have to resort to using Windows at all on it, partly because I have another XP system I can use at work and because it means another $200 for Fusion and a XP license.

 

[TheStu]

Office for Mac comes with a Remote Desktop Client that you can use to connect to Windows boxes.

Apple Remote Desktop IIRC can connect to any system that has VNC installed, but I don't know if it can connect to Windows Remote Desktop.

You can always simply use VNC.

 

[Nothinman]

I have one that I use on my macbook but it's very basic, doesn't work with the clipboard, won't support over 640 X 480 res, etc.

I know there is a good one because I've seen the people with Macs around here use it but I can't say what it's called.

You can always simply use VNC.

VNC should only be used as a last resort. It's slow as hell and has no security on it's own.

 

[skriefal]

I suspected that the open source "rdesktop" client would be available for Mac OS X, so ran a quick search. I found a link to a Cocoa-based GUI for rdesktop called CoRD (http://cord.sourceforge.net/). Looks like it supports the clipboard, higher resolutions, etc.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: TheStu
Office for Mac comes with a Remote Desktop Client that you can use to connect to Windows boxes.

That client is actually free. I haven't tried the 2.0 beta, but the old 1.x client was great.

 

[TheStu]

And you might want to check out that Microsoft Remote Desktop Beta. It is a Universal Binary, whereas the old version was PPC. It isn't a huge program, but every little bit helps.

 

[Fraggable]

Thanks for all the responses, I haven't done much research of my own yet but it sounds like I wouldn't have any problems with it.

I'm torn between going into a year of debt on a Macbook Pro and just getting a HP DV9500 for ~$1200 with similar specs but an AMD CPU, which should be fine since I'm not doing any kind of gaming or CPU-intensive stuff. The HP actually has an advantage with a dual-drive option.