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There are many ways to run Windows on a Mac, and with the addition of the new Intel Macs now is easier than ever. But some people still need to access their PC’s from a Mac and the options are not that pretty. One of the options I use to do was with VNC and Chicken of the VNC software, while they were somewhat reliable, I was never happy with that solution. That was when I found about a Microsoft product called Remote Desktop Connection.

There are actually many different software from Microsoft available with this name, almost all of them allows you to connect from PC to PC without any issues. One of them actually lets you access you PC from a Mac as easy too, one caveat to these option is that you must own a Windows XP Professional, Server 2003, 2000 Server, or NT and a PPC Mac to get it to work. My need was just to run my XP Pro computer from my Mac, since I bought my first Mac I stop using my PC except for some financial software that are not available for the Mac Platform.

Lets start by identifying where to get the software you will need, go to http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/ a Microsoft Mactopia page that holds all the information about the product. The download link is to the right, which leads to the download page, after that the download is actually just 1.8MB. Both computers must be on the same network, if you are using a network hub this is easy, if you need help setting this up email me and I’ll send you the details.

Like any Mac application the install is very easy, the set up can be tricky but I’ll explain it step by step. Write down your computers IP address, again if you need help identifying this item email me for more information. In the first tab you will be asked about user name, password, and domain information. This information is set up on your PC before hand. The second tab ask you for information like screen size, and color setting, for my settings I selected the smallest size and the fewest colors, I did this to have the fastest experience.

The third tab is the local resources options, you can choose to use your Mac speakers. You choose to access hard drive and printers using the option on this tab too. Keyboard access keys are also configured on these tab. The fourth tab allows you to set application to start automatically every time you use the RDC software. The last tab gets down to the performance, you can choose to show the desktop background, content while dragging, menu and window animation, themes, and bitmap caching.

My overall experience with this product has been great is fast and accurate, a couple things to know to get the best of it are: to access the numeric key pad on you Mac keyboard you must press the clear button once, to shut down the PC from your PPC Mac hit Start, Windows Security, Shut down menu, and shut down option, the easier way to get files back and forth is setting up a Network Bridge. Printer sharing is not as accurate as you would expect and videos play choppy.

Other than that is way better than running Virtual PC or similar products if you still own a PPC Mac. For question feel free to email me at lumencreativegroup@gmail.com or visit our forums for discussions. Also, let me know if you like the new layout I applied to my Wordpress page. Thanks.