A couple of us have noticed that at certain times you cannot click on the start button within a single RDTabs session. One way to get around this is to maximize/restore or vise versa (can't remember) the RDTabs window.

Which version did you notice this problem with? With versions 2.0.x there is a known focus problem (primarily keyboard, but mouse focus may be lost too) when you have multiple tab panes (split screen). Try the alpha version to see if this has been fixed (see this thread ). If not, please post some specific steps on how to recreate this problem so I can look into it more!

We are using 2.0.12 and not using split pane, just a single pane with multiple tabs open. At first I thought it was only happening with W2K servers, but then it happened on a W2K3 box as well.

I'll look for the alpha release and let you know if I still have this problem.

I've never experienced a lost focus in that type of situation, but that doesn't mean it's not there, obviously. The best way for me to figure this out is if you can post very specific steps, such as...

1. opened connection #1
2. opened connection #2
3. clicked on connection tab #1
4. clicked on connection tab #2
5. clicked inside desktop and nothing would work.

I have a couple older servers here at work that are 2003 and have been upgraded from 2000 and they have WEIRD issues with remote desktop and I know it's the server because no other server will have this issue. Not sure why it is. But, for instance, there is one server that never works for clipboard file operations. Explorer on the server spits out 50 error message boxes anytime I try it. It happens in Remote Desktop Web Connection too (uses the same Microsoft library as RD Tabs; mstsc.exe uses its own). I have another server that when I copy and paste files, it completely corrupts the clipboard (my guess) because then NO clipboard operation (text or file) works after that. So there are definitely some Microsoft buggies out there in Remote Desktop land. Hope this is something I can fix becuase MS is SLOW on the fixes for the RD library!!!

This is a known problem with opening a session while RD Tabs is not maximized, then maximizing and going to another tab. Simplest solution is to click on Display and Select "Fit to Tab" and that should fix it. 🙂

KC, can you explain this thing in more detail on how to replicate it? It's probably something I can fix, but I'm confused about how to replicate this! Does 2.1.0 alpha's new focus code fix this?

Thought I'd mention that so far the problem has not shown itself in v.2.1.0 alpha 🙂

Great! Then I accidently fixed it while fixing another problem. :-)

Keep me updated if it rears its ugly head again.

sorry to bring this up again but I (and some others who use it) get this quite a lot. If we have the application running maximised, we are unable to click the start button in the bottom left of the corner as the mouse clicks are being sent to the screen down to the point where the screen would be if it was restored to not be full screen? You can sometimes see this in action if you have an icon on the screen where the start button would be and this icon gets selected instead of the start button when you double click the start button....Hard to explain but say i had 1024*768 monitor (0.0 being bottom left of my monitor) and run rdtabs. If the window is from 0,300 to 1024,768 (say the top two thirds of the screen) everything works fine. However if I then maximise the screen then clicking on anything from 0.0 to 300,1024 actually gets passed through to the location of 300,0 to 600,1024

I think that is the best way to describe it. My initial thought was it was due to something about having dual screens (my second monitor is a different resolution to the first one) but this is not necessarily the case as I've just had it happen on my single screen, windows7 beta!

I can't work out what it is that reproduces the problem as sometimes it works but sometimes it doesnt - i'd say it's probably about a 15% fail rate.
Most of the time I am starting the tab session from a stored favourite so my settings don't normally change...

I'll try and reproduce it, but it's definately happening on the latest build on both windows7 and xpsp2 and xpsp3 machines.

Absoblogginlutely - I understand the problem as you describe it, I think. But I don't think that's the same problem as in this original forum post. The original was unresponsive clicks, which I think is fixed. Yours is clicks happening in the wrong part of the window. If you can set up a test case for me, or a youtube video or something that might help because I can't replicate it on this end. I've tried different permutations of tab and window sizes and positions, but it always works for me.

Absoblogginlutely what have you got set in Screen Size on your Display tab for the connection?

Tim, I think I can reproduce the problem. Here are the steps.

1) Have RDTabs in a restored mode (i.e. not maximised for others 🙂 )
2) Make sure the screen size is set to "Fit to application windows"
3) Connect to the server. Verify you can click on start
4) Maximize RD
5) Disconnect the session
6) Reconnect the session
7) Try to click on start and it fails. Verify that clicks are being sent by click and dragging your mouse on a blank area on the desktop. It creates a selection box and if you try to get it to the bottom of the screen, you'll see it stops where the window did when it was in restore mode.

I can reproduce this every time.

My work around? Always leave RDTabs maximised :)

I followed the steps exactly and it works for me. I have a feeling this may be a bug with the version of the RDP Control and not RD Tabs itself. What OS are you using? What is the RDP version (go to Help->About and it will say "Using RDP Control: " and type what it says afterwards. It will likely be Client 4 (XP), Client 5 (Vista), or Client 6 (2008). I am using Client 6 on my machine.

The reason I think it's the RDP control is I just remembered that a long time ago, I had this problem on my old XP box, but I never understood how to make it happen (and your instructions provide the guidelines that I never figured out before) because 99% of the time I ran in Maximized or Full Screen mode.

Also, since RD Tabs 2.1, RD Tabs always sets the resolution based on the dimensions you specify and does not use the internal 'auto' that's available in the control, because older versions, this was buggy and sometimes would throw an exception. If the dimensions sent were incorrect, the entire screen would look incorrect (either too big or too small), not just the clickable area.

Anyway, I'm curious what platforms you all are using.

I could be wrong and it's a bug with RDTabs, but I can't replicate it here... 🙂

Anyway, I'm curious what platforms you all are using.

Seems the board you're using has the capability to post a Poll - but it may not be turned on... Seems like it would be an interesting poll tho... Of course there are those of us who use it on a few different platforms too, but should give an idea of platforms used... 🙂

I'm using YAFF.

Mainly I'm not concerned much with the percentage of who's using what, I'm just trying to figure out what platform those that are having this problem are using.

I've done polls before. I usually get very few responses. 🙂

Hi Tim

I'm using XP 32Bit with SP3
RD Tabs 2.1.21
RDP Client Control 6 - Server 2008

I've "successfully" repeated the bug on my home computer as well. Are you making the connection from a saved favourite? I doubt it makes a difference but just trying to be exact. I can email or post you my saved settings if you think it'll help.

Actually, I tried a fresh connection (not favorite).

Client 6 is good - that's the latest. XP I find interesting, however... I wonder if it's OS specific? I have never experienced this problem on Vista. If it is OS specific, I might just need to pop a warning box if a user maximizes, connects, then restores... 🙂

I have a colleague running Vista. Next time he is in, I'll test it on his machine. Could you also test using a Favourite (as that's what I am using, but like I said, I doubt it's that).

You'll be happy to know I reproduced the error!

You can "fix" it by restoring and dragging the scrollbars around and clicking in the screen (you have to disable "scale oversized desktop to fit in Tab Pane" mode). It appears to be a bug in the Microsoft control, but it is not related to Vista or XP. It seems it's not receiving all the notifications of when the control changes sizes, so it restricts it to artificial and incorrect boundaries.

I think before I didn't maximize at the right step. If you maximize after disconnecting, you don't get this problem! That's actually good news because I think I can workaround this in that case. I think if instead of allowing the RDP control to grow larger during an active connection, I instead cap the maximum size and rely on RD Tabs to do the resizing during a connection, and then resetting the size once the connection is disconnected, I can avoid this issue. It will be as if when you maximize during a connection, the control won't resize until AFTER you disconnect.

krash - please email me using the contact form and I'll email you a special build when I finish it (it will require .21 to be installed first) and you can test for me. Would you be willing to do that? Thanks.

It took a lot of rewiring, but I think I got a version that works. As stated, RD Tabs now manually handles the position and dimensions of the embedded control. Before, I would just set dock property to dockstyle.fill and let the control do its thing. This is, unfortunately, not the first bug in the RDP control. Thankfully, although a lot of rewiring was required, it wasn't very difficult to do. It's very possible I may have messed something unexpected up (or didn't fix the problem in certain cases), so I'd love some testers! Please email me!

I want to release an official 2.1.22 with this fix, but if I can't get enough testing, I may save it for 2.2.0. and let 2.1.21 stand as the last version in 2.1.

Hi Tim

Sorry didn't check the forum until now. I'd be happy to test for you. Will email you shortly.