Macbook To Windows Remote Desktop

There are many ways to remotely control a Windows computer software such as using third party software or the built-in Remote Desktop feature. However, the choices of remotely controlling another computer that is running a different operating system can be quite limited. Although Windows dominates the computer market, but you can still find a lot of people using Macs that runs on OS X.

Macbook To Windows Remote Desktop Download
Microsoft Remote Desktop

In Remote Desktop Connection, type the name of the PC you want to connect to (from Step 1), and then select Connect. On your Windows, Android, or iOS device: Open the Remote Desktop app (available for free from Microsoft Store, Google Play, and the Mac App Store), and add the name of the PC that you want to connect to (from Step 1).

Although Windows dominates the computer market, but you can still find a lot of people using Macs that runs on OS X. Apple has their own remote access software called Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) which is a shareware that cost $79.99. It comes with some powerful features such as software distribution and automation to perform repetitive tasks on.
To configure your Mac to always trust the certificate of your remote PC, first close any open connections you may have to that PC and then double-click on its entry in the Microsoft Remote Desktop.
How can I send ctrl+alt+del to a remote computer over Remote Desktop? For example, if I wanted to change the local admin password on a remote PC using a Remote Desktop connection, it would be helpful to be able to send the ctrl+alt+del key sequence to the remote computer.

Apple has their own remote access software called Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) which is a shareware that cost $79.99. It comes with some powerful features such as software distribution and automation to perform repetitive tasks on remote computers, but unfortunately it is meant for Mac to Mac and not cross platform.

In this article, we will be sharing a few methods on how you can remotely access Apple Mac computers from another computer running Windows for free.

1. TeamViewer

TeamViewer is one of the most popular remote access software that is commonly used to provide remote support because it is easy to use and comes with really powerful features such as file transfer, switch sides, conference call, VoIP, screen recording and etc. Other than that, TeamViewer also works on multiple operating systems where it allows you to control a Mac OS X system from a Windows computer.

You will need to download and install the “HOST” version of TeamViewer on the Mac computer that you want to remotely control. As for the Windows computer that will be controlling the Mac computer, simply download the TeamViewer full version, install and run it. Enter the ID followed by the password and you’re able to connect to the OS X machine. The ID will not change and always stay the same on the machine.

The TeamViewer Host options can be accessed by clicking on the TeamViewer icon at the menu bar and select Preferences. You can change your password, configure the voice, microphone and phone conferencing, access control and etc.

Download TeamViewer Host for Mac

2. LogMeIn Free

LogMeIn Free allows you to conveniently remotely control a Mac computer running OS X from Windows through its web interface or the Firefox plugin. First you will need to create a free account, then login from the Mac computer and click the Add Computer button to download the LogMeIn Installer. After installation, you are able to access that computer from any other computer by logging in to LogMeIn. Do take note that the file transfer feature is disabled in the free version.

Download LogMeIn Free

3. RealVNC

Although there are many versions of VNC which are mostly free, RealVNC targets the enterprise users by offering shareware version and cross platform support to Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX and AIX. Similarly to LogMeIn, the free version of RealVNC provides a very basic remote access feature without file transfer, chat, session encryption, optimized performance, printing and deployment tool. You can use other VNC viewer such as TightVNC and UltraVNC to access the RealVNC server.

Download RealVNC

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Vladimir3 months ago

RealVNC is useless because it does not support data compression compatible with Mac VNC server. So it uses extremely slow and traffic-consuming uncompressed RGB.

Can you suggest a better VNC client or alternative strategy?

Swikriti3 years ago

Can I use softwares like Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver etc (which are in MAC) from Windows system if the windows system doesn’t have the same softwares?

If the OSX commuter has remote management enabled, what client does the Windows computer need to run to connect to it?

menlo6 years ago

Logmein Free isn’t completely free anymore. You can buy an account, and for IT people, you can buy Logmein Central, and then tie a couple of Logmein Pro pay-for machines to the account (easy). Then you are given logmein free subscriptions you can then tie into the account. If the remote access is going to give you an hourly rate or save you time (and time is money) then it is WORTH buying the annual subscription.
The thing that has always been an issue for me is Logmein wants to boast about their ability to stream the remote desktop as HD, and frankly that is just bells and whistles to me. That requires WAY more bandwidth, and is pointless in most cases. The GREAT thing about logmein, even over their join.me product, is you can cut back the color quality or even make it black and white. This SIGNIFICANTLY speeds up the remote session to make sure things work right. Join.me is a $100/yr subscription, to compete with their enterprise version rescue, but again the quality of the remote session is simply limiting and time wasting for the average IT guy who needs to help the user.
More to the point of Logmein Pro, you can actually perform secure file transfers, and monitor the system in a dashboard. The Dashboard for pro subscriptions ALSO gives you things like the top fifteen running processes, all scheduled tasks, the most current 15 lines of the event viewer log, etc. You can perform various levels of remote boot, and even utilize a scripting type offering called one to many.
It is incredibly powerful, and COMPLETELY worth the cost of the annual subscriptions.
(I do NOT work for Logmein, just an IT consultant.)

Thank you very much. Used realvnc viewer on win 7 64bit, to connect to a mac laptop on OS X Mavericks.

JC7 years ago

I was using the built in vnc server for osx, but with the last 10.8.5 update my connection got a lot of lag. I updated my vnc viewers to the latest but that didn’t help. I finally downloaded the vine vnc server ( turned off the osx vnc server ) and bingo problem solved. Thanks for the article, it was a great help.

thanks a lot

In this article, we will be sharing a few methods on how you can remotely access Apple Mac computers from another computer running Windows for free.