This is a bugfix release for bugs discovered after the general availability of RD Tabs 3.0.

DOWNLOAD NOW:
https://www.avianwaves.com/Software/Tools/RDTabs/RDTabsSetup_3.0.8.exe 

Changelog:

3.0.8

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- Fixed bug: for new installations that were not upgrading from previous RD Tabs, you would be unable to move favorites to new folders. Also, renaming a folder may have caused favorites to get moved to the root folder. This did not affect any user upgrading from a previous RD Tabs version.
- Added more debug tracing for when exceptions occur during app start and tab initialization.
- Added a missing connection error code.
- Fixed bug: when cancelling a reconnection attempt using the MS built-in autoreconnector, the tab state could get out of sync and not work correctly after disconnecting.
- Workaround: identified an edge case bug in the RDP control where sometimes when attempting to connect after a series of network issues on some network cards, the RDP control will crash. RD Tabs now captures this occurance as recoverable and destroys the offending tab cleanly without crashing RD Tabs.
- Improved code around disconnection to speed it up in some cases.
- Fixed bug: when disconnecting, you switched to another tab and back, you'd see a black screen rather than the "disconnecting..." message.
- Fixed bug: if your favorite opening link behavior was set to only use the active tab when the tab was not connecting/connected, if the tab was reconnecting it would still incorrectly be used.
- Fixed bug: if your favorite opening link behavior was set to use the existing tab even if connecting/connected, and you opened a new favorite while a connection warning dialog was open, the tab would behave unpredictably. Now the new connection attempt will be ignored until the dialog is dismissed.

Hi Timothy, thanks for the update. (Best of luck on your plans for a Pro edition.)

How would you feel about incorporating Squirrel for your update deployments? It's absolutely painless for the user; you can set it up so that updates come in silently and get applied at the next application startup. It's really pretty slick. And it's fairly easy to configure, too.

What do you think...?

Thanks,
Jeff Bowman
Fairbanks, Alaska

I'm not familiar with that. Do you have a link?

"Squirrel: It's like ClickOnce but Works™"

https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows 

Interesting concept, but upon reading the docs, it doesn't look like it will be compatible with my existing build process. RD Tabs installs to Program Files and that's something Squirrel doesn't appear to allow at all so I can't just wrap the existing RD Tabs installer like I can for Chocolatety (that was seriously a breeze). In addition, you have to apparently host your own Squirrel updates too -- as far as I can tell there isn't a central repository. Unless more people want this, I think I'll have to pass it up for now. It would be a lot of work and I can't really see an advantage over the WiX installer since it still requires users to come to my website and download the installer.

RD Tabs installs to Program Files ...

Right, I see that. Must it continue doing so?

In addition, you have to apparently host your own Squirrel updates too -- as far as I can tell there isn't a central repository.

Can't you host them in the same place you're currently hosting your updates?

Unless more people want this...

That one's unlikely to happen. Squirrel is one of those gems known to the development community, but the user community is largely unaware of it (if at all). The install process—as quick and simple as it is—gives no indication of the underlying engine. But it sure does lighten the load on your customers.

... it still requires users to come to my website and download the installer.

For the first install, yes. That's always the case. But for updates it doesn't require the user to visit the website again, download the installer and stop the application during installation. Squirrel runs completely invisibly. It's SO much easier to keep up with the latest version release.

For example, when I saw the 'New version available' prompt in RD Tabs the other day my initial reaction was "Hoo boy, gotta go through all of this again. It sure would be nice if it were deployed with Squirrel. Then I could focus on my work instead of dealing with yet another distraction." (BTW Squirrel uses WiX internally.)

From your point of view, it also serves as a mechanism that ensures that everyone is always on the latest version.

Unless I'm mistaken, it appears the only hurdle to adoption you're facing is the %ProgramFiles% issue. Is there something forcing you to retain that configuration?

Well, I guess it's sort of philosophical. LOL. Program Files provides a security barrier since you can't write to that folder unless you are elevated. It's Windows' "package" capability for non-UWP applications. And actually UWP apps use it too, but it's more tightly controlled by the OS, rather than the installing application. So in that sense, for some it's a wanted feature for security purposes. Applications installed to %appdata% have no protection against being mucked around with by malware. Also there are GPO settings you can enable in high security environments that disallow running applications that are not installed to Program Files. Though I'd say most people probably don't know or care much about that, TBH. I have no idea if RD Tabs is used in any of those environments, though I'd like it to be able to be and I even went through the expense of getting a code signing certificate as well for essentially that reason.

In an upcoming release, there will be a portable version of RD Tabs, which will allow installation to anywhere and carry the configuration along with it in the same parent folder. The idea of this is for installing to thumb drives and using the same configuration computer to computer, but it could be used to install directly to %appdata% as well, but I was thinking the update process would probably not be automatic, it would just download a zip file and require you to overwrite the contents of the existing thumbdrive with the new content. Maybe Squirrel could be of use for that. I don't know how (if?) it handles portable installation types. But if it can, that might give you basically what you want in terms of the seamless user-level install, not requiring elevation, without affecting those that may have security requirements against running apps not in Program Files. It would also keep me from having to code up some sort of portable type of upgrade process.

There's a lot to think about with this stuff :-)

I don't know how (if?) it handles portable installation types.

It does, but you have to set an environment variable pointing to your desired target prior to running Setup.exe (or .msi). As you've noted, it installs to %LocalAppData% by default.

Anyway, keep up the good work.

I just thought it'd be worth a mention, that's all.

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I'll take a look at it for portable installations. Might do the trick there.

As for UAC, that is only true if your elevated and non-elevated accounts are the same account and you have UAC set to not prompt for elevations in some cases. Most corporate environments disallow mixing standard and elevated users and also don't give you any reprieves from the prompts. 😉

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