Connect to VMs Without Installing CoRD

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When I have to connect to Windows systems, except for the known issues with the en_CA language, CoRD is a great Remote Desktop.  If I could connect using MacOSX-bog-Standard stuff, then clearly this en_CA issue wouldn’t happen… and http://www.smoothblog.co.uk/2012/01/10/configure-vnc-vmware-esxi-5/ will show you how to do that.The trick here is that Back-to-My-Mac uses a VNC technology internally; this also gives us a URL to connect to VNC services: if you server is at 10.1.1.1, try vnc://10.1.1.1/

Enabling VNC on a VMX would obviate dependency on CoRD to get the job done, but this may change your user-experience.  For example, RDP tends to allow filesystems sharing across a connection, but even though VNC wouldn’t support that, I’ve had sketchy reliability there anyhow.  Additionally, the Ctrl-Shift or Shift-Option in order to do right-clicks would change around (so may parts of Windows require a two-button mouse, even though Windows claims that it works with one-button pointing devices).  Finally, VNC password seems to be a static one-for-everyone, so you lose the protection that the Windows Kerberos/AD password policies give you.

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