Microsoft Remote Desktop on Apple mac OSX and Windows 2012 – How to fix & get updated software

Watch out – the old OS X Microsoft Remote Desktop (version 2.1.1) that comes with Mac Microsoft Office 2011 no longer works with Windows 2012 R2 (it does work with plain old Windows 2012). For me it fails with the following error message:

Remote Desktop Connection cannot verify the identity of the computer that you want to connect to.

A (regular) Windows 2012 Remote Desktop client doesn’t have this problem.

(Brief aside – Microsoft have a little note that says the 2.1.1 client is not supported on OS X v10.7 or later. Who knew and why did it make me report all those crashes?)

The good news is that the new OS X Microsoft Remote Desktop 8.0.24091 (Mac App store only though – grr) does work with Windows 2012 R2 . Why this information isn’t listed on the What’s New in 2012 R2 Remote Services page I don’t know…

Another alternative is a product called CoRD – Home Page of CoRD