Submitted by William Campbell
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Royal TS is a free RDP manager that does its job very well. It allows you to centrally manage and access all of your RDP connections from a single “console”. You can categorize your connections with folders and manage them in whatever order makes sense to you. It’s lightweight but very flexible and allows you to have RDP sessions as embedded windows or external/full screen.
The free RDP manager allows you to create a template with settings that can be applied to all future connections. If you have multiple people using RDP, you can get session information at a glance to see if someone is currently using a connection or if a session has been abandoned.
The unlicensed version allows up to 10 connections, which makes it very handy for small networks and at home. For US $30, you can use an unlimited number of RDP connections. Royal TS should be a part of every System Admins toolbox. Best RDP manager out there.
I agree with you about being the best RDP manager. After trying many different ones, I’m using this for 2 years now without any problem. Worth to mention that it requires a password to open your connections definition file. Because this file is strongly encrypted you can save the passwords for all your RDP connections in the file, only having to memorize Royal TS’s password. Well, that of course depends on your level of paranoia about security and encription.
Of all the free ones I’ve tried, none can come close to the paid VisionApp vRD product. It’s quite mature now, adding the ability to apply custom tools, many kinds of connections (includes VNC, http, among others) and at under $100 I wouldn’t do IT without it.
The free version of vRD handles up to 3 simultaneous sessions, which may be enough for the average user.
The free RDCMan from Microsoft has been much improved lately. Highly recommended.
Remote Desktops (part of the remote administration toolkit) for server 2008r2/win7 works great for my usage. Looks to do everything that this one does, except the templates.
I’ve used all of the ones mentioned so far, and I’m always surprised how few people know about mRemoteNG. VisionApp vRD was my previous favorite. When the free version I had wouldn’t install on Win7, I almost bought the newer, paid version. VisionApp bought the original mRemote open source project and basically rebranded it as the new version of vRD. However, someone created a new fork of mRemote called mRemoteNG, which is still open source and quite excellent.
Some of my favorite features of mRemoteNG:
Open (or close) an entire group (folder) of connections at once.
Inheritance for every setting. I set things like color depth, printer, etc. at the topmost parent and get more granular on the way down. If you group all machines with the same login credentials in the same folder, you can have them inherit the credentials from the parent folder and only have to change it in ONE place when the required password change comes along.
Connections can be assigned tab groups. I can have one tab open with 4 connections to my VM Host servers, and another tab group with connections to 10 test VMs, etc.
Easy clone (copy) of connections to create new ones. Great if the only difference is machine name. Be aware, there is a minor bug in this function. After you create the clone, close and reopen mRemoteNG. Minor work-around for a great feature.
I was never able to get the VNC integration to work, but it absolutely rocks for RDP.
Glen
Thank you very much Glen.
I use both RoyalTS (RDP) and SecureCRT (Linux SSH) for years. But I’m very impressed by mRemoteNG.
I did some tests and it seems ideal to consolidate all my remotely connections.
Hi,
To consolidate RDP and SecureCRT, you should try Remote Desktop Manager from Devolutions:
http://remotedesktopmanager.com/
It’s support many other tools and protocols.
I’ve looked at all of the RDP-based tools mentioned here but none of them still come close to vrd 2010. You can add custom apps to apply at the convenience of a right-click to any of your connections, such as pings, find MAC address, initiate remote client assistance(Win7), manage the computer (MMC embedded or in separate window). You can also add http links inside one single connection for things like Dell iDRAC access, change the icons and colors of folders and objects to better distinguish, adjust colors of tabs (nice to group customers or sites), record sessions, manage multiple credential sets, use to open router/firewall/printer HTTP pages, generate FTP sessions directly, connect to a SQL/Express database to manage multiple techs’ access, quick ability to close an entire group of connections (but not all if required), telnet, ICA, VNC, ability to open a session in a separate window, with a pre-defined or custom resolution, inherit settings, import bulk connections from file or Active Directory, work through TS Gateways, drag a session into a separate window, or drag to the middle to choose an instant layout like side-by-side windows, quick buttons to span multiple windows or switch to full-screen, take a screenshot, compatibility with console/admin switch for all versions of Windows Server, show active thumbnails of all sessions, export all settings and custom apps you’ve designed, Wake-On-LAN, shutdown and restart commands at group/folder or individual level, “quick connect” to type in an address to connect without creating an object, Screwdriver support, and I’m sure I’m still missing other features. And AFAIK all these features are available in the free version (free for 30 days, then register for a freeware license), except that you’re limited to 3 concurrent sessions, and can only export up to 15 items if you want to backup settings or move to another computer.
I’d just like to add RDTabs to the list. It’s not a jack of all trades like some of the ones listed, but it’s free and it just works. It allows you to organise your shortcuts and getting started with is very simple and intuitive. It does what it does really well 🙂