This is clickbait. They will remove the Remote Desktop app from the Microsoft Store. They are not removing Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc.exe), which is what most people think of when they hear "Remote Desktop".
I just read the entire article being a bit confused and it wasn't until I read here that I realized that the name of the replacement application is "Windows App".
Honestly, I didn't even know there was a Remote Desktop app in the Microsoft store until they announced they were removing it. As long as the desktop app remains, I'm fine.
> Is there an internal group who's sole job is to ensure names have conflicting meaning?
They must have been responsible for Skype / Skype for business, which must have been responsible for $1B of lost productivity all on its own. So many hours of “why can’t Larry join the conference call?” wasted in 15 minute increments.
Not just Microsoft. I remember iPlanet directory server... which got renamed to Sun Directory Server, SUN Java System Directory Server, Sun Directory Server Enterprise Edition, Java One Directory Server, Oracle Java Directory Server...
I believe Oracle called everything back to iPlanet because customers never used the new names.
What's wrong with the names? Personally, I love Microsoft 365. It just rolls off the tongue and is clearly more meaningful than a silly name like "Office." Who ever heard of an office? Why mess around with a single, familiar name when it can be long, ill-fitting, AND irrelevant all at once? I'm excited to try their next product Microsoft Copilot Professional 365 Enterprise For Workgroups (which I presume will be the name for notepad.exe in future releases).
I mean, some people say One Note is a silly name, but I like that you can look it up in the dictionary and it will tell you exactly what it is: Monotonous.
They want to piggybank on existing branch of X so a feature tangentially related with it gets called X or X_y. Then X or X/X_y gets canned and you don't know what's what.
This isn't a sufficient explanation, because a good marketing team cares about naming things well and most engineering teams are terrible at it. Letting engineering name things is how OpenAI ended up stuck with ChatGPT as a name for their flagship product.
Things I've ran into on Windows 11. (Dont @ me that 'I don't have that problem', I do)
>The colors can conflict between dark mode and deafult OS to the point you cannot see text
>There are clickbait news stories that cannot be turned off
>Onedrive will fill up with data and bother you about being full
>For some reason, some programs will not display despite clicking on them. You must minimize the program infront of them
>There is no switch user button
>I was unable to figure out how to add a password to an account
>Ads are on by default
What I find amazing is that corporate professional computers have literal ads on them. I have a fortune 20 job and I have ads on my computer. These ads are for competitor products, for politics, and sports.
Anyway, LPT: For a personal OS, Fedora. Literally higher quality than Windows. Shockingly higher quality, I was a bit frustrated that I didn't know about fedora sooner. I don't consider Fedora 'Linux', because Linux has a bad reputation with things like Debian/Ubuntu/Mint that are 2+ years outdated out of the box. Fedora is different. I have a windows computer for legacy software like Adobe and CAD, but those are only used when doing work. Sometimes I have an old video game that needs windows.
Other than that, I do recommend Linux (mainstream ones are easy to install), for sure. I have been using it ever since I was 13 years old if not younger.
I have the impression that the entire concept of "store" as seen in Windows is going downhill. No enterprise is able to use it, and that's the stronghold of Microsoft. Also generally less and less applications there, so giving up on this particular one is not even so surprising. After all you still have the "normal" Remote Desktop, and yes the 365 app which is the enterprisey one - expect it to grow all those missing limbs.
I have used the Windows Store version of Remote Desktop since it landed. I really liked it. When the news broke a few weeks ago they were going to deprecate it in favor of Windows App (tried, didn't like), I decided I would create my own launcher since a large part of my job is automation with PowerShell. This won't be for everyone, but if you live in Windows and need to connect to remote servers and you like Windows Terminal and PowerShell, you may find this to your liking.
I gave up with all modern Remote desktop and switched back to vnc and its been working flawlessly. I use tailscale to make the vnc ports accessible to my private network and I'm able to just connect via tightvnc. Remote desktop was only ever complicated because you had to open ports and make your machines accesible online, and with tailscale solving that whole mess for me its as simple as connect to this ip and its done. Thats all the paid options ever took care for you, the core functionality hasnt been changed in forever, unless i guess you care about extreme low latency which products like parsec offer.
Self-hosted VPNs cleanly solve the port access problem using free software. As a bonus, there's generally minimal added latency because it's just another encrypted direct TCP connection.
One (admittedly obscure) reason is the way rdp handles smart cards. It cancels any locally connected devices and forwards the client's instead. Which is a problem if the whole point of the machine you're connecting to is that it has a USB token attached to it with your codesigning keys on it. That one took quite a lot of swearing to figure out :p
We now use this exact setup to get around that (tightvnc + tailscale)
I used the Remote Desktop app on macOS at work. It was replaced by the new Windows app.
I’ve been using it for a few months. First launch is jarring, as it’s a massive window instead of the tiny saved connection window I used to have. But after resizing the window and tweaking a couple things, it’s functionally the same now.
Though I’m not a heavy user these days. I have a VDI I connect to a few times per month, and the occasional Windows server.
Replaced how? My app doesn't yell at me that it's shutting down (as opposed to skype).
Also the original article leads me to believe there are several applications called Remote Desktop and only one of them is shutting down. I'm hoping someone will tell me which is which and how I figure out which one I'm using.
Readit News
They have a terrible naming history.
Remote Desktop App is deprecated and gets replaced by Windows App but Remote Desktop Connections aren’t affected.
I just read the entire article being a bit confused and it wasn't until I read here that I realized that the name of the replacement application is "Windows App".
Why?!
theregister.com has similar relation to facts as The Onion but not as funny
They must have been responsible for Skype / Skype for business, which must have been responsible for $1B of lost productivity all on its own. So many hours of “why can’t Larry join the conference call?” wasted in 15 minute increments.
Windows
Word
Paint
Excel
Entra
Azure
Dynamics AX
365
… and don’t even get me started on the version names they give their OS products :D
Not to be confused with Microsoft Copilot, which is not to be confused with Microsoft 365 Copilot, which is not to be confused with Github Copilot…
[1] https://www.anthropic.com/news/3-5-models-and-computer-use
[2] https://copilot.microsoft.com
[3] https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/03/16/introducing-micr...
[4] https://github.com/features/copilot
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
I believe Oracle called everything back to iPlanet because customers never used the new names.
I mean, some people say One Note is a silly name, but I like that you can look it up in the dictionary and it will tell you exactly what it is: Monotonous.
They want to piggybank on existing branch of X so a feature tangentially related with it gets called X or X_y. Then X or X/X_y gets canned and you don't know what's what.
The number of different uses of “subscription” or “container” is something that stood out to me.
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We all know which company/companies are the 'best'(aka worst for society) at marketing. Microsoft is just following their lead.
If they didn't adjust, they would go extinct... (Maybe not given their walled prison)
Just like we'll love not being able to uninstall Copilot.
Just like we'll love being forced to create a Microsoft Account on install.
>The colors can conflict between dark mode and deafult OS to the point you cannot see text
>There are clickbait news stories that cannot be turned off
>Onedrive will fill up with data and bother you about being full
>For some reason, some programs will not display despite clicking on them. You must minimize the program infront of them
>There is no switch user button
>I was unable to figure out how to add a password to an account
>Ads are on by default
What I find amazing is that corporate professional computers have literal ads on them. I have a fortune 20 job and I have ads on my computer. These ads are for competitor products, for politics, and sports.
Anyway, LPT: For a personal OS, Fedora. Literally higher quality than Windows. Shockingly higher quality, I was a bit frustrated that I didn't know about fedora sooner. I don't consider Fedora 'Linux', because Linux has a bad reputation with things like Debian/Ubuntu/Mint that are 2+ years outdated out of the box. Fedora is different. I have a windows computer for legacy software like Adobe and CAD, but those are only used when doing work. Sometimes I have an old video game that needs windows.
https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil
https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools
Other than that, I do recommend Linux (mainstream ones are easy to install), for sure. I have been using it ever since I was 13 years old if not younger.
Code free to use. Pasted here: https://pastebin.com/EGArXbFi
We now use this exact setup to get around that (tightvnc + tailscale)
I use a "Remote Desktop" to connect to my headless windows box. It has even a Mac OS app.
Is that the remote desktop they're talking about? Or some other that I didn't know about.
I’ve been using it for a few months. First launch is jarring, as it’s a massive window instead of the tiny saved connection window I used to have. But after resizing the window and tweaking a couple things, it’s functionally the same now.
Though I’m not a heavy user these days. I have a VDI I connect to a few times per month, and the occasional Windows server.
Replaced how? My app doesn't yell at me that it's shutting down (as opposed to skype).
Also the original article leads me to believe there are several applications called Remote Desktop and only one of them is shutting down. I'm hoping someone will tell me which is which and how I figure out which one I'm using.
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