In this view, you can switch between sessions by clicking on it from the taskbar, just as if it were an application of browser window. You can also undock a session and give it its own window. This is useful if you’re rebooting a computer and want RDC Manager to reconnect as soon as it comes back online. RDC Manager will try to reconnect that server until it is successful. To use it, drag a server into the Reconnect Group. According to Microsoft, the Reconnect Group is newer and is still under development ( may cause “extreme cursor flicker”). The Connected Group shows you which servers are currently connected. In addition to the groups you create, there are two “virtual groups.” To access them, click View and select Connected group and Reconnect group. This can throw you off if you’re unsure which screen has focus, but if you have some crazy high-resolution, you could feasibly work directly from the thumbnail view. Oddly, or perhaps usefully, the thumbnails can receive focus from the mouse and keyboard. In addition, you’ll see a thumbnail version of the screen for all connected servers, which makes it even easier to get your bearings. However, if you select the group, you’ll be given a nice thumbnail view of all of your servers and their statuses. By default, sessions are docked within RDC Manager and fill the window when clicked on.

This goes a long way in keeping things organized and makes zipping between servers and hosts much easier. The crux of this breakthrough is the groovy tree structure that allows you to group sessions. But thanks to the efforts of David Zazzo, RDC Man is now available to the public as a FREE download. Apparently, this life-saving tool has been used internally by Microsoft for quite some time.

Still, now, Microsoft has officially taken up the torch by offering a more elegant way to handle connections to numerous RDP servers at once within its very own Remote Desktop Connection Manager. This groovy application from Avian Waves was well-deserving of the props it received.

Way back in 2008, we covered RD Tabs, a freeware RDP client alternative that answered the prayers of many a systems administrator for an easier way to manage multiple RDP sessions at once.

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