When I was asked to update our 2010 article about connecting remotely to a PC from a Mac, I thought it would be a fairly simple task. However, since that article was written, Microsoft has dropped support for their Remote Desktop Connection software for Macs. While there are anecdotal reports of it working on OS X Lion, it definitely will not work on OS X Mountain Lion, the latest version of OS X. So I went in a quest of new, free options, and that also turned out not to be a simple task. Here are the best free tools for connecting remotely from your Mac to a Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer or device.

Storing your files on a SkyDrive is a great way to make accessing your data more convenient. Once your files are in the cloud, you can view or edit them using any device with Internet access. But what happens if you have a file you need but it isn’t on your SkyDrive. You may think you’re out of luck, but that isn’t the case. As long as you’ve got Fetch configured properly and the computer containing the file is on and connected to the Internet, you can find the file and upload it right from your account interface on the SkyDrive website. Read on to learn how to use this simple yet awesome feature.

Not many people know about Windows Remote Assistance and how to use it to provide remote technical support to other Window users. Therefore, this tutorial will cover this tool in detail and show how it works. As you will see, it works smoothly and you don’t really need to install third-party software for a quick support session. Windows Remote Assistance will do the job just fine.

A useful feature of Windows is being able to connect to your desktop from another location to remotely manage your computer. While this functionality is native in Windows 7 and previous versions, it is not supported by default in many Linux distributions, including Ubuntu. However, using any of the tools available, you can connect to a Windows remote desktop with ease. This tutorial will show how.

NOTE: This tutorial works on Ubuntu 10.10 & 11.04.

Computers running Windows XP Professional and certain versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 (nearly every version except Home, Basic and Starter) can be controlled remotely via the Remote Desktop Connection protocol. This allows a remote user to log in to the Windows-based computer and control it as if he or she was sitting right in front of it. Windows-based machines with Remote Desktop Connection enabled can accept connections from other Windows computers as well as OS X computers running the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to install the Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac and connect to a Windows computer which has enabled Remote Desktop Connections.

If you are running a Windows-based computer, you can connect to another computer using Remote Desktop Connection. A few days ago we’ve shown how to Enable Remote Desktop Connections in Windows 7. This tutorial will show how to connect from Windows 7 to a Windows-based computer that has Remote Desktop Connections enabled.

Windows Remote Desktop Connection allows you to connect to a Windows-based computer via the Internet or a network. When you’re connected via the Remote Desktop Connection, you can see the host computer’s desktop and access its files and folders as if you were sitting in front of the computer. This is useful for both systems administrators and technical support teams as well as end users, who may want to access their work computers from home or vice-versa.