Apple Remote Desktop 4+

I’ve been using Remote desktop for years (maybe over 10) It has had some isssues over the years. Currently people seem to have the same issue as me, the app forced an update on my computer but older comptuers can’t update. You can go to prefrences and click on ‘Allow Communication with older clients (less Secure)’ THis will fix the issue. Then you can update the clients remotely if needed.
Forcing secure connections is what Apple and other companies need to do today. I am able to manage 60 computers remotley from diffrent locations, even thousands of miles away. Install, update, reboot and change configurations.
I think it’s great, however, clients do disapper at times and need to be put back in. Reports hang at times but after a reboot work again. There are some bugs with the software. Over the years it seems that it has gotten more buggy. In all I use it everyday and when I do have a probelm I am able to fix it rather quickly by googling the issue.

I work in IT for a school district that has a lot of Macs and ATVs in the classrooms. I use ARD to collect Mac information and it is helpful. However, it would be more helpful to IT guys in the Education sector to improve the product and include support for ATVs.

Back in the day, ARD was this wonderful product to help IT staff- where schools invested a lot of money in Apple products- to manage a variety of Macs and make it easy on us. Now, ARD is an after thought. Applle encourged schools to buy Macs and other products as schools were doing it. However, you need to provide the tools to help manage them.

ARD is not dead but it needs improvements as Macs and related products are STILL in schools.

I’m a professor. I’ve got a couple dozen iMacs to manage, with attendant students. ARD was critical in deploying software, shutting down, locking screens for lectures and tests, distributing files, on-screen help and discreet messagesfor individual students, student presentations and demo’s. I’ve used it for years, forgiving it’s little erratic stumbles and false problems, but the last upgrade (admin app) and update (client side) have ended all that. The dread “Failed to Authenticate” issue is sometimes a false problem you can ignore, but now almost always a critical fail. After getting blown around in the storm of on-line questions and solutions from all the other disappointed users, I’ve given up. I have cobbled together AirDrop, Bluetooth, thumb drive, and cloud work-arounds for some functionalities, but basically ARD has seriously degraded my ability to teach and manage the college studio courses. I depended on it all day every day, so I’m very sorry Apple hasn’t come up with a solution. Such a pity for a company which successfully made education its core market.