RDP vs Remote Desktop
Remote Desktop Connection vs. Remote Desktop AppJuly 13, 2020, 6 CommentsOn Windows 10, users have two different native options to establish a remote desktop connection between a pair of PCs. Of course, the target PC (the one remoted into) must run Windows 10 Pro, Education or Enterprise (Home cant support the remote end of such a connection). Ive been a daily user of the Remote Desktop Connection application since the Windows NT 4.0 days, so that means two decades and longer. Ive been playing with the Remote Desktop App since it became available for Windows 10 in 2017, though its release date is somewhat murky (see this Answers.MS thread). To this day, I prefer the older Remote Desktop Connection application to the lighter-weight and somewhat friendlier Remote Desktop app. Let me explain Comparing RDC to RDAppRDC is, of course, the Remote Desktop Connection application start-up window shown at the left on the lead-in graphic for this story. By process of elimination, that means RDApp is the Remote Desktop app whose menu icon appears at the right in that same graphic. Both applications are nearly identical and use the same underlying Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to do their respective things. Ive gotten in the habit of using RDC because back before Snip & Sketch became the recommended native screen-grab tool in Windows 10, its Snipping Tool predecessor couldnt gab evanescent screen info such as Start menu contents, for example from the target PC desktop inside RDApp. This still doesnt work right (I just tried it), but Snip & Sketch is not subject to that limitation. Earlier versions of Windows 10 also had problems with the clipboard/paste buffer. One couldnt use CTRL-C on the target PC (cut or copy) and CTRL-V on the host PC (paste) to grab text from the target PC and then paste that text into an application running on the host PC desktop. This also worked fine in RDC, but not in RDapp. Today, when I tried a classic text cut-n-paste inside RDapp on my Lenovo X380 Yoga test machine from Notepad, Explorer, Everything, and other apps, text cut-n-paste worked perfectly. This removed my long-standing objections to the RDApp, and my equally long-standing preference for the older RDC application. Looks like users can go either way, and work with either remote desktop access tool. I cheerfully confess being habituated to RDC and still reach for it instinctively to access the other 6 PCs in my office (and the 3 other PCs elsewhere in the house right now). But it seems theres no longer any good reason to prefer one over the other. With the recent news about Microsoft pushing users from the System widget in Control Panel to Settings System About, thats probably a good thing. It looks like I wont have reason to complain should MS do likewise, and kill off RDC in favor of the more modern RDApp. Right now, use whichever one you like best. That said, Im increasingly inclined to believe that RDCs days on the Windows 10 desktop might be numbered. Stay tuned, and lets keep an eye on it together! Author: Ed TittelEd Tittel is a 30-plus-year computer industry veteran. Hes a Princeton and multiple University of Texas graduate whos worked in IT since 1981 when he started his first programming job. Over the past three decades hes also worked as a manager, technical evangelist, consultant, trainer, and an expert witness. See his professional bio for all the details. Twitter Share this:
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