The venerable Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMan) 2.2 was starting to show its age. 

After a slight hiatus, RDCMan 2.7 is now available.  Please say thank you to Julian Burger for the early Christmas present.  Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMan) is a great tool to consolidate multiple RDP connections into a single window to prevent desktop clutter.

RDCMan 2.7 supports Windows 8, 8.1, Server 2012 and 2012 R2.

The tool can be obtained from the Microsoft download centre. 

Installation Pointers

There are a couple of things worth noting about the tool:

It will install into the x86 Program Files folder on a x64 machine: 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Remote Desktop Connection Manager

Do not save your custom RDG files in the installation folder, just in case your local workstation dies and the file is gone. I always keep my .RDG files in a  subfolder of My Documents, which is a redirected folder to a file server. 

The RDG files are portable, and you can share them within your organisation.  For example, when you get a new admin give them a copy of the RDG files and they are able to review your list of servers and get connected easily – assuming they have the permissions….

The help file is located in a sub directory called Resources,  - unsurprisingly this is called help.htm

2.7 Fixes & Features

From the above help file.  Please review the help file for details. 

New features

• Virtual machine connect-to-console support
• Client size options come from the application config file (RDCMan.exe.config) rather than being hard-coded.
• View.Client size.Custom menu item shows the current size
• View.Client size => From remote desktop size
• Option to hide the main menu until Alt is pressed. Hover over the window title also shows the menu.
• Added Smart groups
• Support for credential encryption with certificates
• Better handling of read-only files
• Added recently used servers virtual group
• New implementation of thumbnail view for more predictable navigation
• Thumbnail view remembers scroll position when changing groups, etc.
• Performance improvements when loading large files
• Allow scale-to-fit for docked servers (Display Settings.Scale docked remote desktop to fit window)
• Allow scale-to-fit for undocked servers (Display Settings.Scale undocked remote desktop to fit window)
• "Source" for inheritance in properties dialog is now a button to open the properties for the source node.
• Focus release pop up => changed to buttons, added minimize option.
• Added command-line "/noconnect" option to disable startup “reconnect servers” dialog
• Session menu items to send keys to the remote session, e.g. Ctrl+Alt+Del
• Session menu items to send actions to the remote session, e.g. display charms
• Domain="[display]" means use the display name for the domain name.

Bugs fixed

• Application is now DPI aware
• Undocking a server not visible in the client panel resulted in the client not being shown in undocked form.
• Ctrl+S shortcut didn’t work at all. It now works and always saves, even if there are no detected changes to the file.
• Shortcut keys didn’t work when focus was on a thumbnail.
• Add/delete profile in management tab. In same dialog instance, profiles are not updated. Similarly adding a new profile from combo doesn’t update the tab.
• Window title was not updated when selected node is removed and no new node selected (open a file, close the file.)
• Connect via keyboard didn’t always give focus when it should.
• Connected Group would always show itself upon connecting to a machine, regardless of setting.
• Selecting a built-in group then hiding via menu option didn’t work properly.
• Editing server/group properties did not always mark a file as changed.
• Non-changes could result in save prompts at exit. This should no longer happen.
• Activating the context menu via the keyboard button was not always operating on the correct node.
• Changing a server/group name doesn’t change window title if the server/group is currently selected.
• ALT+PAGEUP and ALT+PAGEDOWN hotkeys were switched. This is fixed for new installs—for existing files you’ll want to change on the [Tools.Options.Hot Keys] tab.
• /reset command line option wasn’t resetting all preferences
• “Server Tree” option from “Select server” focus release dialog didn’t show the server tree if it was hidden.
• New file directory now defaults to “Documents”.
• ListSessions dialog sometimes popped up in a weird location. Now placed within the main window
  

Finally and most importantly, please say a big thank you to Julian Burger the developer who wrote this and David Zazzo for working to get the tool released initially!!

Cheers,

Rhoderick