RDP, Terminal Service Connection Management: Royal TS Manager

Royal TS Manager
http://www.code4ward.net/CS2/

Network & support folks

For network administrators and support personnel, the Terminal Service is a very important feature of Windows that can help you administer servers and workstations remotely. Very thin, secure, and easy to use, RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) can be of great benefit to your support staff.

Not just for network & support folks

Note for you home users, you too can use RDP to connect to any other computer you may have permissions to, pending the Terminal Services service is enabled (sorry, no Windows 2000 Workstation support!).

Save those connections, one at a time

The Windows Remote Desktop Client features the ability to save various connection configs to files. You can then copy/forward these configuration files to other users if they also require access to the resource. Not only that, but you can connect your local printers and (local) drives to the remote session.

The Windows Server administration pack (adminpak.msi, included with the source files for Windows Server - also available online) provides a 'Remote Desktops' snap-in which allows you to insert multiple server connections into a single MMC and connect to them very quickly. However, this interface is a little limited as you cannot categorize your connections.

Remote Desktop snap-in with a side of fries, and then some

I've recently come across Royal TS Manager, which takes what I like about the Remote Desktops snap-in and adds a few more features to it. Royal TS Manager adds the ability to categorize servers, and will display current connection information to each server as you browse through them.

Features: Organize multiple connections in different categories. Change the sort order of categories and connections (Using the keyboard shortcuts speeds things up!). Change the category a connection belongs to. Define default values for new connections using the options dialog. Specify an autostart document which will load right after starting up Royal TS. Start a connection from command line: /connect:"Connection Name" Two modes for each connection available: embedded in Royal TS or opening another window. Smart Size Mode: Get rid of scrollbars if you resize the main window. The remote desktop content will be scaled.

I've noticed the 'auto-logon' feature is a bit more consistent than the RD snap-in, also, Royal TS Manager can embed the remote display in the program window (again, like the RD snap-in).


Likes:

• Ability to save entire lists of servers to share with other support people (instead of saving one server session).
• Categories for my connections

Dislikes:

• You need to create a connection before you can create a new category
• No ability to drag & drop server connections between categories

Wish list:

• Ability to reset/logoff/send messages (coming in the next version)!
• More professional icon (yes, it is a hamburger)

Here's a funny note from one of the developers when I asked about the icon:

The reason is simple: Here in Europe, McDonald's cheesburger (I think it's called a quarter-pounder with cheese in the U.S.) is called "Hamburger Royal with Cheese". A while ago McDonald's upgraded this burger and calles it "Hamburger Royal TS" where TS stands for Tomato and Salad.

Royal TS in our context means "a better TS, Terminal Service client".

Head over to code4ward.com, forums are active, and they are taking feature requests (and donations) for the next version!

Alternates:

• Microsoft Terminals
• VisionApp