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Microsoft 'Windows App' Offers Access to Windows PCs From Any Device

mctrees02 said:
First thought…oh does this mean I can now access my Alienware laptop to play games on my MBP while traveling for work?

Second thought…I wonder how well it can run the Microsoft version of Excel. I have an Excel plug-in I use most days for work on a dedicated Windows laptop because it doesn’t have Excel for Mac functionality. Would be nice to not have to carry 2 laptops when traveling.

If the gaming angle works for me to run a sim game where frame rates and latency aren’t a huge issue that would be a nice win.

If the excel play somehow works then it’s a grand slam!
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This app basically acts as a KVM to your pc. So the app would run as flawlessly as your pc will allow. Like you said, the only catch would be latency of the video feed for games. As far as office apps, they run fabulously because your PC does the work. You’re just looking at the screen remotely.
 
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So this works across the internet, like TeamViewer, right? I'd like to be able to stop using that to remote into my desktop at home.
 
This app is great. And yes it is a basic rebrand of Remote Desktop, but it’s much more than that. It’s got redesigned architecture that allows for a far more secure connection between your local and remote devices. It’s not perfect and we will see the flaws soon, but I can tell you from experience, Remote Desktop is pretty easy to exploit. We disable it externally at our clients because we see so much intrusion using its protocol.

And as a plus, it can be used with minimal or no config of vpns or RD Gateways or opening ports.
 
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tonywalker23 said:
Along those lines, just the other day I was thinking of the old "Back to My Mac" that Apple discontinued. I read that it was not reliable for many, but I never had a problem with it that I remember. I have an M1 MBP that I dock at my office and take with me when I leave. But I have been playing with the idea of getting a base model Mac mini to use at my office and the MBP to use while on the go and at home. What I would love is to be able to use something like Back to My Mac on my laptop to view my computer at my office that is plugged into several external hard drives.

Does anything come to mind as a Back to My Mac replacement?
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Router with VPN capability and screen sharing. Works perfectly. If someone in front of the computer you can initiate via iMessage as an alternative to having a VPN connection.
 
Hopefully this works better than Remote Desktop. I used it for a long time and I liked it a lot, very useful, but when I switched to Verizon FIOS it stopped working and nobody fixed it
 
jcshas said:
Isn’t this essentially the same as Microsoft Remote Desktop, or what am I missing here?
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I think it would be more similar to Apple’s “Back to my Mac”.
Which honestly I wish Apple still had.

But yes basically RDP, wrapped into some other helpful bits to make it all come together accross networks/NATs/etc.
 
This is the best way to run Windows on an Apple Silicon Mac. What I do is run Windows 11 on a virtual machine that runs on a PC that is under a desk in another room. This machine has no screen or keyboard attached. Then remove the desktop and put the Windows 11 screen on my M2-Pro-based Mac. The PC can run other things while it runs the vitual Windows system.
 
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chucker23n1 said:
That should work fairly well. Either have a desktop/old laptop somewhere where you run Excel, or rent it from Microsoft (or someone else). Then connect from your Mac. If you put a little extra work into it, Excel can show up as its own "app":

View attachment 2313085

Then it launches in a Mac window like so:

View attachment 2313088
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Thank you, that is exactly I need - Mac Excel is not feature par with Windows Excel and I solver it via a Windows Professional license to remote login into my Windows box.
 
jcshas said:
Isn’t this essentially the same as Microsoft Remote Desktop, or what am I missing here?
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Its integrating with cloud versions of windows to not just RDP into your own personal HW. You can have different cloud versions of windows hosted by you or MS and access them.

Turning the phone into a thin client sort of.
 
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Lord Hamsa said:
No, this doesn't replace all of the use cases for a virtual machine. This would require some physical machine running Windows to be accessible to you, either locally or via the cloud. It's more like Remote Desktop than Parallels, with the difference being the cloud components built into it.

Parallels would still be useful for when you need to run Windows directly on the same machine.
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Yeah this seems like it’s meant for like cloud compiling.
 
klasma said:
You’re the kind of customer that Microsoft is betting on. But you’ll be subject to Microsoft’s whims regarding software updates and pricing, and eventually which software you’re even allowed to install (à la App Store).
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Considering the site we're on, this is peak irony.
 
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DarthDon said:
If you want a perfect working system, get a Mac and / or a PC-System with Linux. If you still don't now why you shoud avoid Microsoft, read they're User Terms.
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Well, when your work is highly dependent on Excel, not using Windows is not an option. Before someone says Excel for MacOS...ask a contractor to use only Harbor Freight tools. It's possible, but it's going to be a lot of extra work.
 
DarthDon said:
If you want a perfect working system, get a Mac and / or a PC-System with Linux. If you still don't now why you shoud avoid Microsoft, read they're User Terms.
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Just as soon as we can find a macOS or Linux equivalent to Teams, Outlook, and Excel that all seamlessly tie into a proper ERP and run monte carlo simulation models (ie, @risk), we'll get right on that. Until then, a perfect working system that does not actually do the work we need it to do is pretty useless.
 
I have used the Microsoft Remote Desktop app both for iOS and macOS since ages. It was a bit awkward to use on the iPhone, but OK with the iPad. But this was the age of iPad 3, so over ten years ago. I still use it on the Mac and the program is working fine, it is not polished, but I don't see many bugs or issues anymore. I mainly use it for remote connecting to a server.

I feel this is just a "re-imagination" of it, and with support for the cloud based subscriptions. If they will now require a subscription to use it, I will stop using it, and find another solution than Windows Server. Same if they abandon the RDP app. I see from their information that there is a web-version of the Windows App, does it mean to connect to a local machine from a Microsoft-web hosted page, or a version you supposedly installs on your local machine?
 
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does this work with Microsoft 365 subscription or its something else I need to pay for?
 
tonywalker23 said:
Along those lines, just the other day I was thinking of the old "Back to My Mac" that Apple discontinued. I read that it was not reliable for many, but I never had a problem with it that I remember. I have an M1 MBP that I dock at my office and take with me when I leave. But I have been playing with the idea of getting a base model Mac mini to use at my office and the MBP to use while on the go and at home. What I would love is to be able to use something like Back to My Mac on my laptop to view my computer at my office that is plugged into several external hard drives.

Does anything come to mind as a Back to My Mac replacement?
Click to expand...
iCloud
 
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