Microsoft’s RDC beta expires; no new release available

Written on March 31, 2008 by Eddie Hargreaves and 11 people have commented

Apple promised to transition all of its Macs to using Intel microprocessors by the end of 2007 and Microsoft released a Universal Binary version of Office in January 2008, but a Remote Desktop Connection Client that runs natively on Intel Macs is still in beta. Except now that beta has expired… sort of.

Microsoft released RDC 2.0 Beta 2 on October 25, 2007, with the release note that it would expire on March 31, 2008. Users launching it today will receive the message shown here:

You might think that the insistence to upgrade to the final release version means there is a final release version available. Yet clicking the default button simply takes the user to the Mactopia home page. Clicking on the Remote Desktop link there reveals that the “lastest” version is still 2.0 Beta 2, which, according to the message given on launch, is “out of date.”

Here’s how I see Microsoft’s options for this situation:

Ideal Option: Release the final version of RDC 2.0 for download
Near-Ideal Option: Release Beta 3 with a future expiration date
Acceptable Option: Continue to let us use Beta 2 and stop telling us it’s out of date
Worst Option: Beta 2 stops working completely and nothing new can be downloaded

Oh, and maybe someone over there should double-check the spelling in the dialog boxes.

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#1 Ben says:
That sucks. I need this for work! I guess at least I have VMware to boot up Windows to RDC into something; but that’s overkill.
#2 Ben says:
There’s a post on the Mac BU site:

http://www.officeformac.com/.ee96857

We can still use it, and a final release should be coming by the end of May.
#3 Uncle says:
OMG…does that blue button in the dialog actually say “Download the LASTEST version”?!

Funniest…ever.
#4 Joe W says:
“Lastest version” isn’t wrong.
That’s a colloquial superlative form to connote this version being really, really latest.
#5 Andrew says:
The latest beta of CORD (open source remote desktop client) is very stable for me; whereas I was repeatedly experiencing strange rendering errors (black rectangles on screen) with RDC beta 2.
#6 Eddie Hargreaves says:
Ben, thanks for that reference to the Office for Mac blog post. It’d be nice if that information was easily accessible on the site that RDC links to.

Also, there are still some unanswered questions. For instance, what about those people who need to use saved connections (which apparently aren’t working anymore due to the expiration). Do they have to wait two months to regain that functionality?
#7 J5 says:
Try CORD, I’ve had nothing but good experiences.
#8 Eleventeen says:
I second the opinion on Cord. Way better than RDC ever was. It supports multiple sessions at a time, saved profiles, etc.
#9 Nathaniel says:
I noticed the looming expiration date when i downloaded the client a week ago. Luckily I’ve left it running, so hopefully they’ll get something new out before I have to reboot the computer.

Shouldn’t someone at MS have an alarm in their Outlook for the expiration date of software, to make sure precisely this situation never happens?
#10 Geert Bevin says:
Same here, been using CoRD for years, never looked back at RDC:
http://cord.sourceforge.net/