Remote Desktop Frequently Asked Questions

Complete FAQ for the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)

Remote Desktop Client Software

This section contains links to remote desktop client software for various operating systems. Clients are available for almost every desktop operating system, as well as mobile devices and some phones.

» HTML 5 (browser based)

» Windows

» Mac OS X

» iPhone/iPod Touch

» Android

» Windows Phone 7

» Windows Mobile

» Linux/Unix

» Java

» HTML 5 (browser based)

With the advent of HTML5 (specifically WebSockets and the <canvas> element), it became possible to create browser based remote desktop clients that run without requiring a browser plugin. Unfortunately, these aren't standalone clients - they require server installation on each machine to be accessed, or the installation of a gateway server. There are several such servers listed on our Remote Desktop Servers page.

» Windows

Windows Server versions, Windows XP, and Vista Premium, Business, and Ultimate come with a bundled Remote Desktop client. For other Windows versions, you can download Microsoft's Remote Desktop client:

DownloadMicrosoft Remote Desktop 5.1 Client [Windows 95, Windows 98 and 98 Second Edition, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows 2003]

For Windows XP SP2, there is a Remote Desktop client upgrade to version 6.1, enabling additional functionality when connecting to Vista and Windows Server 2008 systems:

DownloadMicrosoft Remote Desktop 6.1 Client [Windows XP SP2]

For Windows XP SP3 and Vista, there is a Remote Desktop client upgrade to version 7.0, enabling additional functionality when connecting to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 systems:

DownloadMicrosoft Remote Desktop 7.0 Client [Windows XP SP3]
DownloadMicrosoft Remote Desktop 7.0 Client [Windows Vista x86 (32-bit)]
DownloadMicrosoft Remote Desktop 7.0 Client [Windows Vista x64 (64-bit)]

Devolutions has created a powerful client that can manage multiple remote desktop connections. Its available free from their website:

DownloadDevolutions Remote Desktop Manager [Windows]

Ericom has a client that supports accellerated and compressed remote desktop. A free trial is available from their website:

DownloadEricom Blaze [Windows]

» Mac OS X

Microsoft has an OS X client for Remote Desktop:

DownloadMicrosoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2 [Mac OS X]

Ericom has a client that supports accellerated and compressed remote desktop. A free trial is available from their website:

DownloadEricom Blaze [Mac OS X]

There is also an open source native OS X client called CoRD has been developed by Craig Dooley and Dorian Johnson. You can get it from sourceforge:

DownloadCoRD Remote Desktop Client [Mac OS X]

» iPhone/iPod Touch

There are two remote desktop clients available for the iPhone or iPod Touch:

» Android

There are many remote desktop clients available for Android devices:

» Windows Phone 7

Windows Phone 7 doesn't come with a built-in Remote Desktop client, but there are three clients available in the WP7 app store:

» Windows Mobile

Some Windows Mobile phones come with a Remote Desktop client, but many are deployed without the RDP client. Fortunately, some smart people over at pdaphonehome were able to extract the Windows Mobile 6 RDP client into an installer that works on WM5 and WM6. You can find it on their forums:

DownloadWindows Mobile 5/6 Remote Desktop Client

» Linux/Unix

Many remote desktop clients are available for Linux/Unix. The following are the major clients:

  • Ericom Blaze – client that supports accellerated and compressed remote desktop

    Ericom Blaze web site

  • rdesktop – a generic X Window System Linux/Unix remote desktop client. Most other clients are based off of it in some way.

    rdesktop web site

  • krdesktop – a KDE frontend for rdesktop

    krdesktop web site

  • tsclient – a GNOME frontend for rdesktop

    tsclient web site

» Java

There are several cross platform Java remote desktop clients: