Derek Gallo

Being a Mac OSX user but managing several Windows based servers, I find myself using the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac quite a bit. Until version 2.0 Beta of the RDC software this was quite cumbersome. The older version would not let you have a connection to more than one Windows computer at a time. The new version does however and if you combine the power of Quicksilver you can greatly increase your efficiency in launching your most common connections.

The key is in the RDC client’s ability to save connection settings. You can save a .rdp file into a location indexed by Quicksilver and then quickly launch that connection in just a few keystrokes from that point on. Here is how to set up a connection to a computer located at mydomain.com:

NOTE: You must have Quicksilver and the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac

1. Launch the RDC application
2. Enter mydomain.com into the text field in the RDC window
   
3. Press command+s to save the RDC file. The default save location will be a folder named RDC Connections which will be located in your Documents folder. The Documents folder is indexed by Quicksilver by default so this is a great place to save your .rdp file. Name the file something familiar and something that represents the keystrokes you will want to use to activate this connection with Quicksilver. Quicksilver will index the filename. I usually keep my files named the same as their domain name.
   
4. Now your connection file is ready to be indexed by Quicksilver and you can use it to launch your connection from now on.
   Note that by default Quicksilver re-indexes only about every 10 minutes so it may take that long before the following steps work. You can manually force quicksilver to re-index the Documents folder through the Quicksilver configuration menus.
5. Invoke Quicksilver (I have mine set to use alt+space)
   
6. Start typing the name of your connection (in our case mydomain.com) until the matching result in Quicksilver is the newly saved .rdp file
   
7. Press Enter and the connection launches and prompts you for you login credentials.

Once you launch this connection in this way you find that you don’t even type the entire connection name but only a few letters. It soon takes only a matter of seconds to press alt+space, type my, then press enter. I have a separate .rdp file saved for each of my commonly managed servers to quickly access them by name. You can make the process even quicker by selecting to save the username and password into your keychain at the login prompt. Note that anyone with access to your Mac will also have access to your remote computer however and therefore is not recommended when security is a concern.