Five Ways to Administer a VMware ESX Server

VMware ESX server is an amazing and complex product. It combines a Linux Service console with the power to run multiple virtual machine operating systems, all on the same server. There are a number of ways to administer ESX. Perhaps you are considering VMware ESX server or maybe you have it installed but want to learn more about administering it. Either way, this article is for you. Let's find out the 5 different ways you can administer a VMware ESX Server.

1. Console access to the Service Console

Just like any other operating system, you can access the console of the VMware ESX Server. From the console, you can access a Linux login prompt that to the ESX Service Console. What you won't get is any kind of GUI interface. To use this form of management for your ESX server, you will have to have a good knowledge of Linux as well as some of the proprietary VMware ESX commands and terminology. Normally, the console of an ESX server looks like this:

If you press Alt-F1, you can get access to the Linux login prompt of the ESX service console and login to a command prompt, like this:

The disadvantages to this mode is 1) you must be at the console (or connect using an IP KVM) and 2) you must know Linux to accomplish your task (no GUI).

2. SSH to the Service Console

You can SSH to the console prompt of an ESX server and receive the same Linux text console access as I showed above. Telnet is not allowed. To use this method, the ESX server must be working on the network and you must have an SSH client on your PC to connect. Again, in this mode, you don't get a GUI interface.

3. VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI) Web Access to the ESX Server

The simplest way to get access to GUI administration screen of a VMware ESX server is using the VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI) Web Access interface. This is installed and enabled by default. To get to it, all you need is a PC on the network, a web browser, the IP address of the ESX server, and a valid login. Accessing it is as simple as opening your web browser and entering the IP address (or DNS name) of the ESX server. What you will get is a Welcome screen, showing your administrative options.

Click on Login to Web Access to see web login screen:

What you will see is this:

This is the VMware VI Web Access interface. The benefit to using this is that you get a GUI client for your ESX server without having to install a client on your local machine. The downside to the web interface is that you can only perform basic ESX functions like controlling existing machines (start/stop/pause) and console remote access. You cannot add new VMs, work with VM storage, or VM networks. Still, this is a great interface if you just need to check the status of your ESX VMs, restart a VM, or use console remote control.

4. VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client (VI Client) to the Server

The absolute best way to remotely administer your VMware ESX server is the Virtual Infrastructure (VI) Client. This is an installable client that provides you full access to administer your ESX server. This client can easily be downloaded and installed from the initial ESX Welcome screen, by clicking here:

This will prompt you to Run or Save the VMware-viclient.exe installation program. I suggest running it.

The installation is simple and straightforward. When it is complete, you can run the VI Client from the desktop icon that was created.

From here, you will login to the VI Client with your server name/IP, username, and password.

Here is what the VI Client looks like, once you login:

The benefits to the VI client are that you have full access to do whatever is needed on the ESX Server and you get a GUI client to do it in. The only downside is that you must install the VI client application to do this. However, the installation is negligible and the VI client is the absolute best way to administer your ESX Server. Even better, the VI client can be used with the VMware Virtual Center Server - which brings us to administration option #5.

5. VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client (VI Client) to the Virtual Center Server (VC Server)

The same VI Client that can be used to administer a single ESX server can also be used to administer your entire data center of VMware ESX servers. Instead of pointing the VI client to the name/IP of your ESX server, all you have to do is to point it to the name/IP of your Virtual Center (VC) server. This, of course, assumes that you have VC up and running. Also, you will have to login with a VC server user account (a Windows account) instead of ESX Linux account. Here is what it looks like:

From this VI VC interface, you can manage all ESX servers, VM storage, VM networks, and more. Virtual Center, of course, is an optional product that requires additional licenses and hardware.

ESXi 4.0 – Installing In “Embedded” Mode

Starting with ESX 3.0 VMware began issuing an alternative ESXi version, the main difference being that the Linux Service Console was removed . This greatly reduced the overall size of the installation from around 2GB down to only 300MB, with the additional benefits of dramatically cutting boot times  and improving security.

Another advantage was that it could also now be installed on a USB storage device and as a result several server manufacturers started to include an internal USB slot for this purpose. On their new G6 range of servers Hewlett-Packard have extended this to give owners a choice of USB or SD Card media slots integrated onto the motherboard:

Mainboard layout of an HP DL380 G6

Installing on Embedded Media

First of all you need to prepare your server, and as usual I recommend ensuring the BIOS and hardware firmwares are all up to date - HP provide a downloadable firmware CD ISO which is regularly updated, although you should also check the specific support page for your server model for interim updates. Dell operate an even simpler system whereby you can just enter the "Service Tag" for your server in order to see the available updates, and most major manufacturers do something similar. Nowadays BIOS and firmware updates are easy to install as most are supplied on bootable media with graphical installation wizards, so it shouldn't take you long to do.

The HP G6 servers give us a choice between a USB flash drive and SD Card for our installation media, so in this example I have opted for an SD Card. In fact the one in the illustration is a MicroSD Card in an adaptor since that was all I had available at the time, but I wouldn't recommend that for a production system. Since this will likely be a critical piece of hardware you shouldn't economize on the components, subsequently I have replaced the card with a 2GB Kingston High Performance model. We opted for SD Card instead of USB in the belief that performance and reliability were slightly better, although I am yet to find much real world evidence to support this. Your USB or SD Card media needs to have a capacity of at least 1GB to hold the ESXi install, there is no benefit in using a larger card as the remaining space will go unused.

Installing the SD Card is simply a case of sliding it into its slot, ensuring the write protect switch hasn't been turned on by accident in the process! Once it is inserted re-assemble your server and boot it up into the BIOS setup screen in order to check it is enabled to boot from internal SD/USB media. During normal operating conditions it should be the only bootable device present in the server, so if you do not have any hard disks installed you may wish to disable the embedded RAID controller (VMware recommend disabling/removing unused hardware to free resources).

When you are ready boot the server off the ESXi 4.0 ISO, then when prompted press "Enter" to start the installation process, read the EULA and press F11 to accept it. The next screen prompts you to choose your installation disk and you should see your USB/SD media listed as an option - if there are no other hard drives in the server it should be the only option. In this example below my server has a 1GB SD Card installed as well as several hard disks configured in two logical disks:

Make sure your disk is highlighted and press "Enter", then on the next screen press F11 to confirm and it will start the installation process. Once it has completed installing you will be prompted to remove the installation CD and reboot the server, after which it should then boot ESXi for the first time from the embedded media. Should it fail to boot the most likely cause is that the boot options are not correctly configured in the BIOS, in which case check them again and ensure booting from internal USB/SD media is enabled.

Completing the Installation

Provided your server does boot into ESXi after you have removed the installation CD then the rest of the setup procedure is the same as with any other method, and you should not need to treat it any differently. The only major difference will come when configuring datastores for the host to use, assuming there are no local disks to use then you will have to setup a connection to your SAN first, then connect the datastores from there.
Alternative Installation Methods

Although this is by far the easiest way to install ESXi on USB/SD media there may be an occasion where it is not an option, or you wish to prepare a bootable ESXi USB drive in advance on a different system. The main reason for doing this is to "hack" ESXi's hardware support in order to get it working on unsupported hardware, most commonly systems with SATA hard disks. My main article on installing ESXi 4.0 mentions the "Whitebox hardware compatibility list", which lists a number of storage controllers which ESXi will work on "with some modifications". Should you want (or need) to do this then I suggest you start here, which explains how to create your own bootable ESXi USB stick and then goes on to provide links to various useful websites.

Create Custom Roles in VMware ESX Server

In our previous articles, we covered the explained what Roles, Privileges, and Permissions are in VMware ESX. VMware ESX Server comes with a number of administrative security roles already defined, by default. However, those default roles aren't going to fit the needs of every company or every network administrator. In this article, we will find out how to create custom VMware ESX Security.

Default Roles in VMware ESX

From our article on VMware ESX Roles, Permissions & Privileges, we know that roles are groupings of these privileges for easy assignment. There are a number of default roles that are preconfigured groups of various assignments for different purposes. Here are the default routes and I think you will understand how these are used:

• No access user
• Read only user
• Administrator
• Virtual machine user
• Virtual machine power user
• Resource pool admin
• Datacenter admin
• Virtual machine admin

What if these default roles don't fit your needs? What if you want to assign a role to a certain user and all that user needs is the ability to reboot a virtual guest machine? There isn't a role for that but what if you wanted to assign the ability for all 10 users on the helpdesk to be able to reboot the helpdesk server if it was hung, without the ability for them to take control of the server or even power on the server. How would you do that? Let's find out...

Create a Custom Role in VMware ESX with the Virtual Infrastructure Client

To create a custom role, you have to move out of the typical ESX server and virtual machine server inventory and click on the Admin button, like this:

Once inside the Admin section, look at the different tabs. By default, you will be on the Roles tab. This is the tab where you are able to edit existing roles and create custom roles.

To create a custom role, you click the Add Role button. You will see the Add Role dialog box where you can enter a name for your role, like this:

In our case, we called the role "HelpDeskServerReset" to show the purpose of this new role.

Next, we need to define what the role can do. To do this, use the check boxes below the name of the role. In our case, we only want users who belong to this role to be able to reset the Helpdesk server. This privilege is located under Virtual Machine -> Interaction -> Reset. Simply check this box, like this:

Then, click OK and your role should be in the list:

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Role with Users or Groups to create Permissions

Now, you want to take this role, group it with a user or group of users, create a permissions that is assigned to a server, virtual guest, data center, resource pool, or more.

To do this, go back to the level that you want to assign the role in your inventory.

Right-click on a server and click Add Permission.

In the box that appears, select the Role on the right that you want to apply. In our case, select the HelpDeskServerReset Role.

Next, click on the Add button.

Add the Helpdesk services group, such as I did here:

Now, click OK and you should see the combination of the role and the user group that is shown, like this:

At this point, if you click OK, the permission will be assigned.

To test this, all you need to do is to go into the VI Client, login as a member of that HelpDesk group, and the only thing you should see is the single HelpDesk Server. On the HelpDesk server, there will only be a single option, to reset the server.

Summary

The ability to use Windows AD users and groups makes assigning and maintaining roles much easier. Back in the Roles Administrative interface, you can even clone existing roles to make the creation process easier. The ability to create & apply custom roles is a major benefit of VMware ESX Server. At some point, you will certainly have to create custom roles and apply this. By having this article, I hope you have a heads start and good understanding of how it works.

Recommended 3rd-Party VMware ESX Server Tools

With the growing popularity of VMware Infrastructure & ESX Server, there are an ever growing number of 3rd party tools available for ESX Server. In this article, we will provide a list of ESX 3rd party tools you should consider as add-ons for your ESX Servers. Take a look.

What applications do I get with VMWare ESX Server?

I have had a number of people ask me what is really included when you buy VMware ESX Server. Well, just like most of the answers to performance questions with ESX server, the answer is "it depends". In this case, it depends on what package of VMware Infrastructure you bought when you bought VMware ESX Server. Here are the packages available and what they come with:

	Starter	Standard	Enterprise
ESX Server	X	X	X
Virtual SMP		X	X
VMotion			X
VMware HA			X
VMware DRS			X
VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB)			X

In all cases, VMware Virtual Center Management Server is a separately licensed product.

While none of these are "third party" products, it is first important to know what you have before you start investing money in other options.

VMware ESX 3rd Party Add-on Tools

Now let's get to the meat of this article and cover all of the third-party products for VMware ESX I could locate. Here is the list:

Vizioncore - Vizioncore offers vRanger, vMigrator, vCharter, and vReplicator. vRanger (formerly ESX Ranger) is a popular backup application for VMware ESX Server. vMigrator is a P2V conversion application, vCharter is a performance monitoring application, and vReplicator is used replicate virtual machines or SAN LUNs to other servers or SANs, either on the LAN or across the WAN.

Dunes VS-O and VD-O - VS-O offers a management layer on top of VMware Virtual Center or Microsoft Virtual Server which helps in virtual automation. VS-O is a type of virtual infrastructure management package. VD-O is used for VDI.

EsXpress - a scaleable and fault tolerant backup, restoration, and disaster recovery solution for VMware ESX. They offer the Virtual Backup Appliance (VBA)

Platespin - offers Power Convert and Power Recon. Power Convert is a P2V, V2V, and complete server workload management system (depending on the package you buy). Platespin also offers PowerRecon which collects and reports on all physical and virtual servers. PowerRecon will report the most efficient use of your hardware & software, as well as tell you how much you could save by virtualizing your systems (both in hardware and in cooling/electricity usage)

Veeam - offers Veeam Configurator, Reporter, FastSCP. Veeam configurator is used to extend the Virtual Center console and give you access to more options and flexibility than what Virtual Center provides. Veeam Reporter is used to document, discover, and create a visual diagram of your ESX server farm. Veeam FastSCP is used to transfer ISO files to your ESX server. They claim that FastSCP is 6 times faster than traditional SCP clients. Veeam also offers a couple of free utilites - Rootaccess Wizard for ESX and Veeam Monitor for VMware Server.

VMTS - offering a variety of FREE tools and scripts for VMware ESX Tools such as VMTS Patch Manager, SSH client for ESX, and more.

Of course, there are a number of companies making Virtual Desktop brokers used with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).

If there are products that you use or that you have heard of and would recommend, I encourage you to post them in our VMware virtualization forum so that they can be added to this list for the benefit of all Petri forum members.

How to Configure VMware ESX Alarms

Once you have your VMware ESX Server Datacenter up and running, you are going to want to know when the virtualized financial server goes down or, much worse, when the virtualized email server goes down. So how do you know what is going on in your ESX farm when you aren't sitting there and staring at the Virtual Infrastructure client? The answer is - you configure ESX Server Alarms. Let's find out how.

What are VMware ESX Server Alarms?

I tend to call ESX Server alarms "alerts" but, no matter what you call them, VMware Alarms are used to notify you when something happens on your VMware ESX Servers. While it could be something good that you are getting notified of, many times, it is that you are getting notified if some error or issue.

In the VMware ESX vernacular, "alarms indicate the status of objects". Those objects could be any of these: folders, datacenters, clusters, resource pools, hosts, and virtual machines. If you are familiar with the Virtual Infrastructure client, you know that, on the left hand side, all of these VMware objects are arranged in a sort of hierarchical tree, like this:

While I mentioned the fact that ESX can send an email when it has an alarm, really, ESX alarming can do a lot more than just that. Here are the list of Actions that ESX Server can take when an alarm is triggered, based on a condition that you defined.

Now lets configure an alarm...

How to configure a VMware ESX Server Alarm

To configure an alarm, first you need to know the hierarchical level that you want to configure the alarm at. Let's say that we want to configure an alarm for just one server. Right-click on that server in the tree and click Add-Alarm.

Give the alarm a name that is meaningful for the function of the alarm, like this:

Set the alarm trigger. Notice how there are drop downs for each field.

Optionally, set the alarm reporting thresholds:

And lastly, Add the alarm action:

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One more important thing to note: for email alarms to work, you must have configured the proper SMTP information inside Virtual Center. To do this, in your Virtual Infrastructure Client, go to Administration, then Virtual Center Management Server Configuration, then Mail, like this:

There is also some pre-setup if you choose to use SNMP server Alarms.

Now that your alarm is setup, I recommend you test it. Here are the results of my successful test:

Summary

Configuring VMware ESX Server Alarms are something that you should do once your VMware Virtual Infrastructure is up and ready and you are about to move into production. The hierarchical nature of these alarms means that you should take some time configuring these alarms because proper planning will pay off. Overall, VMware ESX Server Alarms are a very cool and useful feature that is not difficult to configure.

Getting Familiar with the Windows 7 Start Menu

As of today, Windows 7 has been officially released and while there are some subtle changes to the Graphical User Interface (GUI) from Vista it is a pretty big departure from what many people are used to seeing under Windows XP Professional or Home Editions.

Despite the inroads Windows Vista may have made into some homes and businesses, Windows XP is still the most widely used operating system so these changes are going to be a bit more of a change for most people.

This article will take a brief look the Windows 7 Start Menu and some of the changes in the basic functions of it and how you can perform some customizations for personalization and ease of use.

How is the Windows 7 Start Menu Different from Vista and XP

The Start Menu has a bit of a different look from what the average Windows XP user is used to working with.

Accessing it is still done pretty much the same ways as it was in the past - you'd either hit the Windows "pearl" (the replacement name for START - sometimes referred to as the Windows Logo) or the Windows Logo key on the keyboard to bring it up.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – The Start Menu is normally at the bottom of the screen; I always move it from that default location to the top of the screen on all my systems.

This is just a personal preference of mine and I've done this as far back as Windows 95. To me it just seems more logical - all of the menus I use in software, in web browsers, etc are across the top and the Windows Taskbar and Toolbars are all at the bottom by default.

Before getting into some of the things you can do with Windows 7 Start Menu I thought I'd walk through what you see in the default view of the Start Menu and some of the ways you can customize what you see in there.

What's new with Recently Opened Programs?

There are a number of different areas in the Start Menu to get to know.

There is the Recently Opened Programs area as shown below.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – If you take a look back at Image 1 you'll notice the Creative Audio Control Panel is a peach color rather than white in the Recently Opened Programs area.

This color difference is due to the fact that this is a newly installed program; once you access the program it will turn to white like the rest of the listed programs as shown below.

You can change the number of programs you see in the Recently Opened Programs area by either right clicking the Windows pearl and selecting PROPERTIES or by opening the Start Menu up and right clicking an open space and choosing PROPERTIES.

Once the Taskbar and properties page is open you'll see that you are already on the Start Menu tab by default.

Right from here if you needed to, you could make changes to the default power button action from the drop down menu if you wanted the action to be something other than "Shut Down."

The additional available options for this system I am working from include Switch User, Log off, Lock, Restart, and Sleep as shown below.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – What you have for available options here may differ depending on your system settings, whether your machine has the Sleep option enabled, which version of the operating system you are running (I am running Ultimate Edition), whether or not your system is a domain member and so on.

The default page of the Start Menu tab also allows you to make adjustments to the privacy settings with respect to the recently opened programs that are shown in the Start Menu and the Taskbar.

In order to actually change what we see in the Recently Opened Programs area we'd need to select CUSTOMIZE to continue.

Tweaking the Recently Opening Programs for your use

You'll notice there are many settings that you can make changes to from the Customize Start Menu window once it is open.

In order to accomplish what we've set out to do we'll just focus on those customizable options.

We can adjust both the number of recent programs to display as well as the number of recent items to display in the Jump Lists by changing the numbers in the Start Menu size section.

This will directly change the number of Recently Opened Programs shown to whatever we set it to.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] – What you have for available viewing space as set by your monitor resolution is going to directly affect what you can see in the Recently Opened Programs view.

If you set the number higher than what can actually be view the system will let you know that all items may not be displayed.

I could not set this limit higher than 30 on my system.

By changing the setting from 10 to 20 you can see that there is now additional white space for new programs that I launch to fill in the area

Once enough programs have been opened the list area would be fully populated and older programs would cycle off.

Managing Multiple Remote Desktop Connections with Windows 7 and MuRD

What if instead of administering a fleet of remote Windows computers via separate remote desktop windows you could have a compact tabbed interface to manage them all in? What if instead of managing your remote desktop connections via a folder full of .rdp files you could arrange them in a neat hierarchy within one simple interface? With MuRD (Multiple Remote Desktop) from T and K software, those things and more are available to you.

MuRD is a $34.95 USD remote desktop connection manager that uses the mstscax.dll ActiveX control to establish remote desktop connections. MuRD allows you to store all of your remote desktop connections within its Connection Manager interface and easily keep track of multiple open sessions within tabs or the standard full screen view.

The Connection Manager is the heart of MuRD's management capabilities. It is a tab within the MuRD interface that is opened by default when the application launches. Within Connection Manager you can add new connections, create a folder hierarchy for your connections, drag connections to a favorites panel for easy access and even see which connections are open on which monitor. Also within the Connection Manager tab is an optional Connection Details pane that allows you to quickly see some of the specific options that have been chosen for a selected remote desktop connection.

Making a remote desktop connections is virtually the same as using the familiar Windows Remote Desktop Connection application (mstsc.exe). However, there are a few useful additions. For example, you can change the port that the RDP client attempts to connect to and you can populate the username, password and domain fields using credential sets that you pre-make.

Saving sets of credentials that you use frequently is done via the "Shared Credentials" feature. Once created, shared credentials are then available to be applied to any new or existing remote desktop connection in MuRD's Connection Manager. Shared credentials are also very handy for when you change important passwords on your servers but have dozens of saved RDP connections with pre-populated credentials (you do change passwords frequently, don't you?). Simply change the password once in the Defined Credentials list and all saved connections that use that credential set are updated.

You can also save custom resolutions within MuRD that are then offered as a choice within a connection's display tab. The resolution size can be any height and width giving you the ability to make whatever unusual resolution you may need.

If you already have a library of .rdp files, you can easily import them into MuRD. Once you've created and imported multiple connections, organizing them is as simple as creating folders and dragging-and-dropping them to their proper places all within Connection Manager. You can create connection shortcuts within MuRD to place a single connection in more than one location for logical grouping reasons.

The ability to copy and paste connection files within MuRD allows you to quickly create multiple connections to similar computers. You could also create new connections without any computer specific information as a type of template file. Then it's as simple as a copy and paste operation to have a new connection that has pre-populated connection options which will only need minor tweaks to be ready for use (for instance, customizing the IP address and connection name).

For easier viewing, the connections shown within MuRD can be listed using familiar Windows display options such as small icons, large icons, detail view or list view.

If you have a set of RDP connections that you seem to launch all at one time you can create a group and then add individual connection files to that group. When you open it, all connections associated with that group will simultaneously open.

You can easily share your connection files with other MuRD users using a mapped drive or UNC path. This can be quite handy for a group of admins who require access to the same servers. There are two ways to share connections: with "Group Connections" or "Shared Connections". The difference between the two is simple. Group connections cause the connection files to be read only and Shared Connections allow you to edit the saved RDP connections.

With all of these connections available, if you have more than just two or three open simultaneously you'll probably want to know exactly which sessions are currently active and where each session's window is located. The "Active Connections" pane within connection manager gives you at-a-glance visibility into which monitor or tab a connection's screen is on. This is especially handy for those who have multiple monitors. Double clicking the connection within the Active Connections pane will bring you immediately to that connection window.

But how do you choose which connections are opened on a specific monitor or in a tab? By simply right clicking on a connection within Connection Manager and choosing where you want it to be opened. If a session is already open in a tab you can move it to a full screen window by right clicking on the tab and choosing which monitor you would like it to be expanded to. If a connection is already open in a full screen window, just click the "move to a different monitor" button on the remote desktop connection bar and choose where you want to move it to. Finally, you can use the "Active Connections" pane to select an open connection and drag-and-drop it to the desired monitor or to a tab in Connection Manager.

"But wait!" you might be saying, "That doesn't look like the Remote Desktop bar that I know!" Very true. When a remote desktop session is open in full screen mode, the familiar remote desktop bar is there, but with some unfamiliar icons added. These icons, in order from left to right, include the familiar pin, the option to use SmartSize window scaling, a button that will bring the connection manager tab to the foreground, a button that allows you to switch to any other active session and a button that will give you the option to move the active connection to another monitor or back into a tab within connection manager.

There are other small, but thoughtful features scattered throughout MuRD. For instance, you can set a master password on the application that is required before it will launch. Also, right clicking a connection within the connection manager offers a "connect to console" option. This allows you to create a non console connection file while giving you an easy ability to connect to a console session if necessary. Gone are the days of manually editing the console option in each saved .rdp connection or even having duplicate .rdp connection files for each server with one being for the console session.

One of the best features of MuRD is that it is portable! MuRD comes in an .exe package or in a simple .zip file. The specific instructions to make the contents of the .zip package portable are on the developer's web site. It's as simple as creating two specific folders within the MuRD application directory. After that, MuRD is portable and you can take your settings and connection files with you wherever you go! There are no registry edits or any other modifications made to the local computer.

One conceivable disappointment for some may be the program's inability to connect to different protocols such as VNC, Citrix or SSH. However, MuRD by its very name is focused solely on Microsoft Remote Desktop connections and if that's what you find yourself connecting to most often, then MuRD may be the program for you.

There is a cheater's way of including other connection and file types in the MuRD connection manager. Since the connection files and folders are simply stored in MuRD's application folder (or a file share if you use group/shared connections), you can drop any file within the folder structure and then check the "Show other File Types" option within MuRD's Settings menu. Now you can place shortcuts, batch files and anything else in the MuRD "ConnectionFiles" folder hierarchy and see them within MuRD's connection manager.

MuRD itself will not open the files of course. Think of this as using MuRD as a stripped down version of Windows Explorer that can only browse within MuRD's ConnectionFiles folder.

Best of all, it runs on Windows 7 without administrator privileges or any compatibility mode. The one exception is the "ping" command. If you right click a connection, you will see the option to ping that host. The ping operation will fail to run properly if MuRD is not run as an administrator. Admittedly, the ping feature is probably MuRD's least commonly used feature.

I have encountered some minor bugs while using the application. One involved occasionally not being able to move active full-screen sessions between screens or the Connection Manager. Happily, T and K Software's responses to my requests for support in hunting down those potential bugs and also answering my requests for general help were quick, thorough and courteous. That's quite a bonus these days. The software is in active development and continues to improve. In the end, the application delivers what it advertises. If you deal with many RDP connections in the course of a day, $34.95 USD could help you on your way to a more efficient workday.