Light Weight, Portable Alternative to MSTSC

This isn't a problem any more, but when I first started to go to my current college, they were still using Windows 2000 in their computer lab. What does that mean? It means no native RDP client so I could remote into my home computer from school. When I went to San Diego State University, the library computers ran "locked down" Windows XP. They removed the run line, and only allowed access to Internet Explorer, and notepad. I would right click on the desktop, and create a new text file called rdp.rdp. Then I would double click on that, and BAM! Remote desktop bitch!

Well, that didn't work so well on the Windows 2000 workstation at my current school. True, you can download remote desktop and install it on Windows 2000, but I didn't have local admin rights. No, my only alternative was TightVNC, which isn't as secure as RDP.

That problem is over! I have found a light weight, portable alternative to Remote Desktop in a tool called Terminals. This puppy does not require installation, can be run from a thumb drive, and doesn't require local admin rights to use!

Besides that, the latest version also has support for VNC, VMRC, SSH, Telnet, RAS, and ICA Citrix. You can also save your passwords for your connections, and protect them using a master password when running the program (Though I'm not sure how secure this really is).



Of course this is too little too late, as my college finally upgraded the lab computers to Windows XP (Way to stay cutting edge Coleman! Always stay one OS behind!) and Windows XP has Remote Desktop built in. The good thing about Terminals though is that all remote administration is in one place now, which certainly makes things easier.

What do you use for remote access while on "locked down" networks? I would like to hear your experiences in the comments.

Posted in: mstsc alternative, rdp alternative, remote desktop alternative, vnc alternative