Review: Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac

Yesterday I posted that there is a beta available of the new Microsoft Remote Desktop Client for Mac and said that I would give it a short review. Well I've used it a bit now and found a few problems and oddities, but my overall opinion was improved from the previous version. The two big features being improved performance and support for more than one connection.

Maybe because this is beta software but the multiple connection feature didn't appear to work for me. I also found it odd how that feature works. To connect to more than one computer you type in the compputer name or IP address into the inital dialog ,connect to a computer, then save off that connection for reuse later. The UI is just clunky but will be a welcome feature once it starts to work.

The performance is much improved which is really the biggest problem with the old client. I find it odd that the bottom right corner has resize bars when the window doesn't resize. Probably just a but because the window should be allowed to shrink. Again, beta software.

We'll see how the final product turns out, but I would suggest to the team to redo having a global preferences dialog for all connections (in other words the dialog only shows one connection's settings) and do something similar to how Mail works with multiple accounts. And to connect provide a nice little list in a menu. Anyway, that's my two cents. I'm going to go back to using VMWare now.