Visual Studio on remote desktop from a Mac - any issues?

Question

I am in need of a new laptop, and I'm considering going for a Mac. However, an import part of my day-to-day work involves remote desktop'ing to my office computer (Vista), and running Visual Studio 2008. Has anyone done this? Are there specific issues to be aware of?

Thanks!

Quintuplicate

Take a look at @jm666's answer about function keys, that's important. – Slip

Answer 1

Remote desktop works without flaws.

Ad Function keys - Guys, do you checked?

System Preferences -> Keyboard and under the "Keyboard tab" check the checkbox with text:

After this your function keys will works as expected...

Microstructure

Appears that this is the easiest way to enable those. No other 3rd party software is necessary! So simple, thanks! – Jacobjacoba

I found this works great for everything but F11 and F12. For those I had to flip these settings for mission control. – Emmyemmye

Answer 2

If you'd like to use the Visual Studio defaults for debugging you just need to use the command key in addition to the function key, so 'step over', for example, is command-f10 instead of simply f10.

Affianced

I find that F5 and shift-F5 works without the addition of the command key but command is needed for F9,F10,F11. – Charlyncharm

Answer 3

It works great. I've done it at home lots of the time. Using my MacBook Air to develop on my quad-core workstation remotely. The only issue I can think of (except keyboard shortcuts) is that you don't have Aero available :)

Gravelblind

Answer 4

to Aaron's suggestion, I just had to do this today and fn-ctrl-[function key] rather than command-[function key] works on my MacBook Pro for most function keys, but it gets confusing fast, especially when your shortcuts require multiple keys. i.e. Shift-F5 to stop debugging becomes shift-fn-ctrl-F5. If you're a resharper user you may also find it useful to disable the resharper shortcuts to avoid confusion.

I'm not sure if this is an issue of key mapping collisions between the Mac, RDP, VS and/or Resharper, but fn-ctrl-F11 did not work for the debug-step into command initially. I had to set the command explicitly in VS under options=>environment=>keyboard=>Debug.StepInto. There are probably other issues like this.

In conclusion, probably most of what you need can be done, but you'll probably find yourself changing settings whenever you work remotely, and having to remember a new set of shortcuts.

Squawk

Answer 5

I use Remote Desktop Connection all the time from my mac to several Windows 2008 R2 servers. It works great. It has crashed on me a couple times, but that is very infrequent. I use an app called Palua on the Mac that automatically switches the fn key on and off based on which app is in use. I turn it on for VMWare Fusion too.

I'm thinking of use RDP instead of a virtual machine for development.

Alterative

Palue is no more. Fluor is a free alternative that does the same. – Vanna

Answer 6

It does work very well indeed. I just want to stress Mehrdad point on keyboard's shorcuts. You will definitely miss them. A Lot!. I know this could be just me not knowing how to do it, but until today, I wasn't able to enable F10 and F11 (very important keys for debugging) working properly.

Droppings

Answer 7

I'd change Visual Studios shortcuts to be like X-Code's ones. Need time but it's worth it. And I also remember that remote Desktop for mac can re-map mac keys to act as windows ones - if I'm not mistaken try doing that. Otherwise remote desktop works fine, no problems at all.

Vernacularism

Answer 8

I am on MBP2015, and remote desktoping into my Win10 work environment using Visual Studio 2013. Debugging keys F10, F11 for example (I assume others, too) are not working. I tried someone elses suggestion to use Command+F10 and that is NOT working. Then I tried Command + fn + F10 and that works.

Feint

Answer 9

If you are using Windows 10 in bootcamp and connect to another remote desktop which is Windows 10 also, Visual Studio won't accept your keys F5 though F12 without Fn key being pressed. If you want to avoid Fn key, open the Boot Camp Control Panel from systray and tick "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys.." as in the screenshot.

Ketose