RDP based remote desktop support tool

Question

This may be more a discussion that a question.

We all know that we can conect to remote desktops by use of TeamViewer, reverse vnc, etc etc.

But why don't any of these tools use the RDP protocol?

The fact is, RDP absolutley blitzes all the other protocols.

RDP is single session I hear you say. But it isn't. Remote Assistance has happily been using RDP, even before Vista introduced the shared RDP session api.

Remote Assistance operates WAY quicker over my WAN than a direct vnc viewer, but it is simply too impractical to offer as a solution.

Why aren't there any comercial remote desktop assistance tools out there using RDP?

Answer 1

The first paragraph of the RDP article on Wikipedia has your answer.

Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft

Basically, RDP is Microsoft's protocol and Remote Assistance is part of Microsoft's product (hence why it uses the protocol.)

Answer 2

I use the portable version of 2X Client, which is commercial, but the client is free. You can use it to connect to standard RDP servers or the 2X Application Server (which is also free for limited use, IIRC).

And then of course there is Citrix XenApp (it used to be called Presentation Server) and Citrix XenDesktop, which includes most of its functionality as well as other things (which MS RDP is doing as well). These are very commercial, and expensive, and used by many companies.

Microsoft's Terminal Server technology was originally licenced from Citrix.

Answer 3

I've actually just enaled Remote Assistance using Group Policy.

I was looking for something that could be used on extra-domain computers, but indeed there are many decent offerings in both free products and commerical.

The Remote Assistance within the domain works very well, better than VNC, not sure why we've never looked at it before! With a few hacks, you can even get rid of the 'permission to connect' prompts on the client. As per company policy of course...

Thanks