Custom RDP solution

In a previous post I covered several issues I ran into with the vista rdp client. I have a few more problems that have pushed me to write my own RDP client. Its more a wrapper around the ActiveX control so it will require RDP 6.0 (and .NET 2.0) to be installed. But it does solve my problems.

Here are the features I want to include

Disable close button
Fix Windows key sticking
Allow saved passwords inside RDP file
Encrypted RDP files
Custom title bar text
Single sign on (v2)

I have every feature working except the single sign on. I am going to bounce that feature to a later release, but I do have a solution worked out for it.

My app can read any RDP file. I only implement a subset of the options, but I can use my existing RDP files. I did implement all the settings that we change. I also added a few new ones that control the new features I added. "disable close button:i:1" and "disable close button message:s:" are 2 examples of added settings.

To disable the close button, I just catch the close event and display a customizable message if the connection is still active. The return them to the form. This solves the issue we have with open record locks on disconnected sessions from people clicking the X to close.

The custom wrapper has the ability to read a password from the rdp file and use it in the connection. This allows me to publish shortcuts with generic usernames and passwords in them again.

I use RDX extensions to indicate encrypted files. I use TripleDES to protect the files from user changes. I have places that I don't want people messing with the settings. Also good for when the password is saved in the file. A custom RDX file editor is provided to my technicians that would need to make changes to the files.

And by default, the Windows key does not stick. That was a nice side effect.
On deployment, I associate RDP and RDX run commands with my custom application. The icon is unchanged and my user experience does not change much.