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back to article Microsoft holds nose, shoves Windows into Android, iOS boxes

Microsoft may not yet be keen for its Office suite to run on rivals' mobile devices, but it has made good on its promise to make Windows accessible on Android and iOS devices. As we flagged last week, that promise was to release native RDP clients for Android and iOS. Both have now landed. Here's the iOS version. The Android …

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  1. Bob Vistakin
    Facepalm

    So .... the lie comes full circle.

    "Linux is a cancer". Oh, wait.... that damn linux is powering Android, which is doing a fair bit better than us these days - in fact it's our only mobile revenue stream. Well, these are desperate times, so let's try to infect it with our shit and hope no-one notices.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So .... the lie comes full circle. @Bob Vistakin

      And yet you'd complain about them ignoring the presence of Linux in the real world if they refused to bring this out.

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      1. Ram Sambamurthy
        Reply Icon

        Re: So .... the lie comes full circle. @Bob Vistakin

        Leave him alone

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

      "infect it with our shit" Well perhaps you are the turd? As a Linux user I cannot run my business on Open Office and Evolution, they are unfortunately relatively shit compared to the de facto standard of MS Office, regardless of their OS. Feel free to lump MS software all together and criticse them equally, but some of us are more objective than you.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

        Be fair, Outlook is much, much more than just a basic email client. Which is sometimes good and at other times, a royal pain in the conkers when all you want/need is an email client and you don't want to deal with Outlook's shit.

        You are right though. It'd be nice to be able to choose software based on principles (free software best, open software almost as good, proprietary software evil) but one can't, one has to get the job done and as good as Open/Libre Office, Thunderbird, GIMP etc all are...they don't always fit the bill. Do you need to exchange files Photoshop users? Then you need Photoshop - GIMP isn't going to cut it.

        Do you need to use Endnote for research docs? Then you have to use MS Office, Open/Libre Office aren't supported.

        And so on.

        It would be much better if software was free (as in speech, not necessarily cost) and I'll do my level best to use that as the first stop, but if it doesn't do the job and it doesn't look like a quick fix to make it do the job; then I have to cut my loses and pick the tool that does. Unless people are going to start paying me for principals rather than productivity of course.

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      2. codeusirae
        Reply Icon
        Linux

        I cannot run my business on Linux?

        @Cavehomme2 : "As a Linux user I cannot run my business on Open Office and Evolution, they are unfortunately relatively shit compared to the de facto standard of MS Office"

        I've been running Microsoft free (at home) for years now, can't say I've noticed any lessening in productivity.

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        1. Ram Sambamurthy
          Reply Icon

          Re: I cannot run my business on Linux?

          Try LibreOffice and Thunderbird.

          I haven't had any problems using Libre for business use. What is it that Libre cannot do for you? For most purposes, Libre Office is good enough.

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    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

      You had to go back to 2001 to find that quote, things have changed, MS actively supports linux in many ways these days.

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      1. Captain Scarlet
        Reply Icon
        Pint

        Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

        Yes MS supports linux in return for being able to extract money from it.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

          Whereas RedHat, Suse, Debian et al support Linux out of the goodness of their hearts? Oh, no, my mistake they support it for Money.

          If you don't want to have you software used by people you don't want it to be used by, don't release it under an open source license.

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      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

        > You had to go back to 2001 to find that quote, things have changed, MS actively supports linux in many ways these days.

        False. MS "supports" Linux when forced to by law (their kernel commits) and when they can gouge it for money (Android) as their own efforts are a complete joke.

        MS does not now, nor has it ever (except in the *very* distant past) ever supported, promoted or otherwise tried to interoperate with Linux (or GNU or...) in an open and honest manner. MS is, to its core, utterly opposed to cooperation, openness and standards (the OOXML bullshit).

        MS is the cancer. And you know what we do to cancers? Cut them out.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

          "MS does not now, nor has it ever (except in the *very* distant past) ever supported, promoted or otherwise tried to interoperate with Linux (or GNU or...) in an open and honest manner. MS is, to its core, utterly opposed to cooperation, openness and standards (the OOXML bullshit)."

          You need to get up to date. MS support Linux in their hypervisor, their management tools, their cloud products, with reporting and interop/data exchange and in many other places. I was speaking to someone from Suse at IP Expo during the week and they were keen to promote their relationship with MS as something positive, a selling point for Suse.

          That Android uses proprietary technologies which MS hold the IP for, is not the fault of MS, you can hardly blame them for wating to profit form their own work.

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        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

          Any large commercial organisation does not now, nor has it ever (except in the *very* distant past) ever supported, promoted or otherwise tried to interoperate with it's commercial rivals in an open and honest manner. Big business is, to its core, utterly opposed to cooperation, openness and standards

          FTFY

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          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

            "Any large commercial organisation does not now, nor has it ever (except in the *very* distant past) ever supported, promoted or otherwise tried to interoperate with it's commercial rivals in an open and honest manner. Big business is, to its core, utterly opposed to cooperation, openness and standards"

            Absolute rubbish, this sounds like a pranoid marxist's rant about capitalism. Just because you can point to some examples where this is true, doesn't mean that it's true all the time as many, many technologies will demonstrate.

            SPDIF. LP records, the CD, various music formats, various network protocols, the PC itself, standardised fasteners, tools for those fasteners, the car seatbelt, these are off the top of my head in the time it took to type them, there are countless other examples of companies working together for the common good.

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      3. Bob Vistakin
        Reply Icon
        FAIL

        Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

        @AC 11:56

        Gosh, I didn't realize there was a time limit on this. Please do let us know how you get on with the masses when you pardon the likes of Hitler, Ian Brady, Tony Blair etc for their evil acts against humanity, merely because they happened before some imaginary cut off date you conveniently pulled out your ass by way of a comedy "argument".

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

          I wouldn't say I'm a fan of Tony Blair - but let's get things in context - what has he done that is so evil?

          The war in Iraq? Civilian casualties? By reckoning about 100,000 caused by VARIOUS factions - Saddam himself did a "better" job of it. (not to mention the Iran - Iraq war).

          In World War 2 - 24 MILLION in Soviet Union alone. China 15 MILLION. Germany around 8 MILLION. Referring to Blair as a "war criminal" would make most world leaders war criminals too.

          As far as I know, MS haven't killed anyone. If you're still upset at the feckless "cancer" comment, grow up.

          I object to that statement on the grounds that it is an insult to people that have had to deal with cancer. Linux? You're acting like a 15 year old boy that got turned down when he's asked a girl out. Get over yourself. You are not some "champion of Linux" on some quest against the "Evil Empire of Microsoft".

          Get a life.

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        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So .... the lie comes full circle.

          @Bob - It wasn't a comedy argument, anyone with a cursory familiarity with your posting history can tell that. Suggesting that someone who slagged off your favourite operating system twelve years ago is somehow like a genocidal maniac, child killer and unpopular prime minister is as bizarre as it is hyperbolic.

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  2. url

    it'll be great

    when MS release a free client for us WinPho users

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    1. Lusty
      Reply Icon

      Re: it'll be great

      "when MS release a free client for the WinPho user"

      There, fixed that for you ;)

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      1. RyokuMas
        Reply Icon
        FAIL

        Re: it'll be great

        What's the difference between "fixed it" comments referring to WInPhone users in the singular, and a herd of cows?

        ... a herd of cows hasn't been milked to death yet. If you *must* have a dig just "because it's Microsoft", please at least try to use a bit of originality.

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        1. Lusty
          Reply Icon

          Re: it'll be great

          I wasn't digging because it's Microsoft, I was digging because I have had a winPho forced upon me by work, following the Android debacle. It seems working mobile phones are beyond the ken of my company :\

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bollocks

    How different is it from LOGMEIN software? Not much IMO.

    So what are they on about?

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    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Bollocks

      Seconded.

      You do not need local client software for fully functional RDP to a Tablet. 2XS has proven this long ago. I use it for demos - works flawless of my phones and tablets to a windows VM. No local client required.

      WYSE pocket cloud is not a good example of an RDP client, neither is the cytrix one. They are "gateway drugs" to dope you into their eco-system with RDP being the bait.

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      1. JDX Gold badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Bollocks

        Don't know how Logmein works technically but there is a big difference between RDP and VNC-based offerings.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Bollocks

          Beginning with "VNC is shit in comparison". On of the things MS did very well was RDP, I have yet to see anything come close. And no, X windows forwarding isn't close, it's not even in the same race. Renders like a total turd.

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          1. Richard 22
            Reply Icon

            Re: Bollocks

            RDP is pretty good - but I'd say remote X forwarding is a much better solution (and renders fine - at least on a Linux client, I don't often use it on Windows). I use both at work every day. I don't need another PC's desktop when I just want to run one app. I'm aware of Remote app - but that's only available from Windows server, cutting out many useful use-cases.

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          2. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            VNC

            To be fair, VNC on a Linux box is absolutely fine. Doesn't work so well on a Windows box since they can't tap in to such a low level in the video driver (unless you use one of the other VNC-compatible options which comes with a video driver). But yes, RDP works excellently (including the open source version for Linux).

            Regarding this Microsoft app, I had two, maybe three, RDP clients on my tablet before this, and this one adds nothing to those. Really can't see what the fuss is about other than the fact that Microsoft appear to have just about caught up.

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        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Bollocks

          Logmein does not work on VNC protocol. You do need a driver installed on the PC but its much quicker and more flexible (like dual screen support). Also paid version has file transfer, remote install and a bunch of other items.

          Logmein uses a proxy site so when your PC starts it makes an OUTGOING connection so no need to configure the router and you can have multiple internal PC running logmein. To access your PC, you log onto their site which has details of your PC so works fine with dynamic IP PC without the needs to dyndns service.

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    2. J__M__M
      Reply Icon

      Re: Bollocks

      How different is it from LOGMEIN software? In my case about 12 hops.

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  4. Adam 1

    > Microsoft? Security? The thought never connected a single synapse. Not a one

    More specifically, it is a new rdp client not a listening daemon. So unless he is worried about spoofed certificates going unnoticed by the client in q man in the middle attack, I can't see any major risk.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MS Channel Salesman Goes Yummy

    Hmmmm, all those lovely and expensive CAL's I can sell on the back of this to those who don't know any better.

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  6. mark1978

    I recognise this app! Mostly because it's an obvious rebrand of iTap RDP, except this one is free. Not a bad thing as iTap RDP has always worked well.

    1 0
    1. Steve Foster
      Reply Icon

      @mark1978

      Microsoft bought the iTap clients from iTap.

      0 0
  7. Peter Ford
    Linux

    Point and drool

    Nothing special - I can ssh to my linux servers from my phone or Android tablet, and don't have all that windowy guff spoiling the command line experience!

    I can even ssh *into* my phone or tablet - that's much more fun...

    8 8
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Point and drool

      Please stop the tired old "I know the command line, so I'm superior" comments.

      The command line is good for some things, a GUI is good for others. Got 5000 pictures, and want to know which one the dog is? It's a GUI, want to rename them all sequentially? It's a command line.

      I know just as many people who use command line by rote, knowing little about what the commands they execute actually do, just that they were told once that they needed to use them, as I know people who hack around on the GUI until they find "it just works now".

      Oh, and why would my phone need an SSH server? It's a phone.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Point and drool

        "Got 5000 pictures, and want to know which one the dog is? It's a GUI"

        And if you want to do pretty much anything which doesn't specifically require visual recognition, a CLI is usually far quicker and much more powerful.

        "why would my phone need an SSH server"

        Came in useful for me on various occasions, such as when I wanted to retrieve my entire SMS history in the form of a text file.

        5 1
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Point and drool

          "And if you want to do pretty much anything which doesn't specifically require visual recognition, a CLI is usually far quicker and much more powerful"

          Rubbish. A CLI is only quicker if you've learned it beforehand and usually it doesn't present information in anything like as a useful manner as a GUI. If I need to do something that I'm not used to, and I'm only going to need to do it once or twice, it's GUI all the way. If I'm going to be doing it again and again, it's the command line.

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      2. Vociferous
        Reply Icon

        Re: Point and drool

        > Got 5000 pictures, and want to know which one the dog is? It's a GUI, want to rename them all sequentially? It's a command line.

        Wrong. They're both jobs for Total Commander, the most powerful software under the sun.

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  8. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Old word, new meanings?

    > The fact that you don't have to install a 3rd party client to a PC is awesome

    So now awesome means sensible?

    > I've Remote Desktop'd home, and it just works. This is awesome but I bet it'll cause some security risks.

    and now it means, what? nice, surprise, expected, shocking, insecure?

    Maybe the trick is to completely ignore any sentence that contains the word, since it appears to have so many meanings. As Harry Nilsson¹ might have suggested "A meaning in every direction is the same as no meaning at all"

    [1] The Point, album release: 1971

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    1. Philip Lewis
      Reply Icon

      Re: Old word, new meanings?

      One of Harry's wonerful albums. Triangle toss anyone? Where is arrow?

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just tried this on my Android tablet. Didn't work for me. On my Windows 7 Home Premium Desktop I enabled Remote Assistance, but the Remote Desktop dialogue is missing from the Remote Assistance tab. I could do more diagnostics, I guess, but I can't be arsed. For security, I've now turned off Remote Assistance..

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    1. Lyndon Hills 1
      Reply Icon

      Windows Home rdp

      Not sure you get remote desktop with the 'Home' products. It's there in Windows 7 Professional.

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    2. Charles 9
      Reply Icon

      Remote Desktop is not included in Home releases. it's intended for the Enterprise, so it's only on the Enterprise branch of Windows products: meaning XP Professional, Vista/7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate, and 8 Pro/Enterprise.

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    3. adam.c
      Reply Icon

      Premium only supports Remote Desktop as a client. To be able to access your PC, you;d need at least Professional

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    4. Alister
      Reply Icon

      Newsflash... Windows Home editions do not contain a Remote Desktop (Terminal Services) server. This has been true all the way back to XP.

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      1. thesykes
        Reply Icon

        maybe it would be useful to a lot of people for either Microsoft to mention this on the app description or for websites declaring how wonderful this software is.

        One sentence saying "does not work on home editions" would save a lot of people a lot of wasted time and frustration.

        1 1
  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1 less reason to own Surface or Windows Phone then.

    Not that you didn't already have a million good reasons.

    5 4
  11. PaulR79

    Brilliant! Turn all other mobile OSs into WinPho

    I like the suggestion that it's so you can use "Modern Apps" because what I've really wanted from my Android phone was to be able to remotely connect to a computer and effectively turn it into a Windows Phone device.

    4 1
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Brilliant! Turn all other mobile OSs into WinPho

      I'm pretty sure that they're not going to send someone round to everyone who has an Android device and make them install this software, so you could exercise the "not installing it" option.

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      1. PaulR79
        Reply Icon

        Re: Brilliant! Turn all other mobile OSs into WinPho

        I know, I was laughing at the absurd suggestion of its use. Splashtop does far beter even if it's slow as hell in performance and I get far greater control. I just don't see anyone installing this because they must have their Windows apps as opposed to wanting to grab a file or something else beyond looking at a tile that flips.

        I wasn't the one that downvoted you btw.

        4 0
    2. RyokuMas
      Reply Icon
      Trollface

      Re: Brilliant! Turn all other mobile OSs into WinPho

      Well, I guess that would save me the time and effort of making Android ports of my games that work on all the different variations and configurations that would only get hacked and pirated...

      1 2
      1. M Gale
        Reply Icon

        Re: Brilliant! Turn all other mobile OSs into WinPho

        As opposed to Windows games that are never found on torrents, of course.

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shame

    To be honest its ok, sort of like the multiple credentials part, however the lack of variable zoom or mouse pointer makes it blow hard. "remote rdp enterprise" is far better on android, with the mouse in trackpad mode there is nothing that even comes close.

    0 0
    1. eswan
      Reply Icon

      Re: Shame

      Agreed. No resolution choices, one zoom level, crappy paning, no pointer. There's another half dozen apps as good as this one and two or three that are much, much better.

      1 0
  13. Pouar

    Too bad we can't put Linux on Windows devices...

    ...thanks to restricted boot. This would actually be the only reason I'd get a Windows tablet. I'm guesssing this is why they're trying to get Windows on Android devices, because no one would buy them because of that.

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  14. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Can't hurt to have available!

    "Do you need to exchange files Photoshop users? Then you need Photoshop - GIMP isn't going to cut it."

    Gimp supports .psd files.

    As for home.. yeah, "Remote Assistance" is so basically *Microsoft* could, theoretically, log into your box. It is not remote desktop.

    I'm staying out of this discussion since it mostly seems to be infighting. I figure it can't hurt to have an RDP client available. Even if you generally avoid Windows (but not necessarily 100% FOSS....), keep in mind this should also work with VirtualBox's RDP server.

    2 1
    1. Charles 9
      Reply Icon

      Re: Can't hurt to have available!

      While GIMP supports PSD files, it DOESN'T support Photoshop PLUGINS, and there's many a Photoshop workstation that has some plugin they use for special filters or whatnot.

      It's the same problem with exchanging LO/OO files with MS Office: in addition to the inevitable formatting gaffes, complicated files will have scripts in them that don't translate well between products.

      And since these products are the de facto standards of their respective industries...

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  15. Vociferous

    I wish my Windows Phone could do this.

    It can't.

    1 0
  16. Christian Berger

    What else can you do with current "smart"-phones?

    I mean seriously there is no way to securely store data on a mobile device (it's sad that one of the best solutions is a probably Bitlocker), it's hard to get software securely onto those devices.

    So the best you can do is to use those devices as dumb terminals.

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    1. Vociferous
      Reply Icon

      Re: What else can you do with current "smart"-phones?

      To be honest, that's not so bad. A dumb terminal is the best use I've ever seen for a smartphone.

      0 0
  17. Tim Bates

    aFreeRDP?

    I've been using aFreeRDP since it came out - does this do anything the open source client doesn't?

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