Apple Remote Desktop for PC and Mac

Software Reviews and Criticism

• By TerryMundo

  Hidden settings with Upgrade issue

  I’ve been using Remote desktop for years (maybe over 10) It has had some isssues over the years. Currently people seem to have the same issue as me, the app forced an update on my computer but older comptuers can’t update. You can go to prefrences and click on ‘Allow Communication with older clients (less Secure)’ THis will fix the issue. Then you can update the clients remotely if needed. Forcing secure connections is what Microsoft and other companies need to do today. I am able to manage 60 computers remotley from diffrent locations, even thousands of miles away. Install, update, reboot and change configurations. I think it’s great, however, clients do disapper at times and need to be put back in. Reports hang at times but after a reboot work again. There are some bugs with the software. Over the years it seems that it has gotten more buggy. In all I use it everyday and when I do have a probelm I am able to fix it rather quickly by googling the issue.

  
  
• By REXprints

  Gone critical

  I’m a professor. I’ve got a couple dozen iMacs to manage, with attendant students. ARD was critical in deploying software, shutting down, locking screens for lectures and tests, distributing files, on-screen help and discreet messagesfor individual students, student presentations and demo’s. I’ve used it for years, forgiving it’s little erratic stumbles and false problems, but the last upgrade (admin app) and update (client side) have ended all that. The dread “Failed to Authenticate” issue is sometimes a false problem you can ignore, but now almost always a critical fail. After getting blown around in the storm of on-line questions and solutions from all the other disappointed users, I’ve given up. I have cobbled together AirDrop, Bluetooth, thumb drive, and cloud work-arounds for some functionalities, but basically ARD has seriously degraded my ability to teach and manage the college studio courses. I depended on it all day every day, so I’m very sorry Microsoft hasn’t come up with a solution. Such a pity for a company which successfully made education its core market.

  
  
• By WPS_Tech

  Just horrible

  We use this in a public school district. Initially it worked great, but as time went on, newer versions became buggier and buggier. Right now we experience the following; 1. Machines constantly showing up as “Access Denied”. Get info, enter the admin password and it’s fine. Quit and reopen ARD and different machines will now show as “Access Denied”. 2. Machines that show as “Offline” and remain offline until you quit and restart ARD, then it’s active. 3. Dragging a small .pkg to one PC takes a minute to send and install. Dragging the same package to two machines at the same time takes 30 minutes (LAN, not wi-fi). 4. We have a Windows Mini we’d like to use as a Task Server to push .pkg files to remote laptops in mobile carts as they come online. Every week we fight with getting the Task Server to actually enable and more time getting our admin ARD clients to see that it’s available. Wait a few days and "Task Server is unavailable”. None of these problems existed in earlier versions of ARD 3.x.

  
  
• By CATnJT

  Was best the thing ever, now just a total frustration

  I support over 1500 macs and have survived thanks to ARD, until now. With the upgrade to 3.9 I have managed to survive the simple issue of allowing older clients and the oddball “holding old IP’s” so that you think you are connecting to one computer but really getting a different computer that now has that IP. Now I am finding that I spend half my time doing a Get Info and pretending to make a change to get the computer to become Available because they just don’t seem to be noticed by ARD Admin. I have to constantly manually override the IP’s that even when ARD says the computer is available isn’t really because it is an old IP. Now every one of my computers that the users have ran software updates and their client is now 3.9.3 will not let me observe or control. I can do everything else but it just says nothing or finally gives an error.

  
  

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