Remote Connection Manager — RDP · SSH · SFTP / FTP / FTPS in one themed, tabbed client.
Finestra's flagship target is Windows RT 8.1 on ARM32 (jailbroken Surface RT–class devices),
where no modern remote-desktop client exists — and it runs equally on Windows 10/11 ARM32,
x86 and x64 from one universal AnyCPU build. The RDP engine is a ported, modified
FreeRDP 3.28.0 cross-compiled for ARM32 and x64. (32-bit x86 Windows: the engine is no longer
bundled — engine\x86\ ships with a short README explaining how to add one. Everything but RDP
works without it.)
Verified on hardware: Windows RT 8.1 (ARM32, 1366×768 at 96 DPI) and Windows 10 ARM32 (1920×1080 at 144 DPI) — RDP connect, drop and reconnect, audio output, and the touch-keyboard-aware layout were exercised on real devices on both. The remaining combinations run from the same AnyCPU build but have not been device-tested.
- RDP — embedded FreeRDP sessions (tabbed or true fullscreen), live RTT/bandwidth/jitter readout, pause/resume, Letterbox / SmartSizing / Dynamic-resolution oversize modes, multi-monitor tear-off, per-monitor fullscreen.
- SSH — owner-drawn xterm-256color terminal (VtNetCore), live font-size/scrollback/colour preferences, drag-selection copy, password + private-key auth (ed25519 / RSA / ECDSA, passphrase supported), keepalive, manual reconnect with scrollback preserved.
- SFTP / FTP / FTPS — dual-pane file browser (local ⇄ remote), crash-safe temp+rename transfers, upload/download/rename/delete/mkdir, per-session reconnect.
- Security posture — host-key TOFU pinning (
known_hosts.json, fail-closed on changed keys), FTPS certificate pinning with accept-once, DPAPI-encrypted saved passwords (never plaintext, never on a command line), no telemetry: the app makes no network calls except to the servers you configure. - One shell — mixed RDP/SSH/FTP tabs in one window, drag tabs out to new windows and back, per-type toolbars, system tray, run-on-startup, dark/light theme following the Windows accent, fully owner-drawn UI (renders identically on RT 8.1 and Windows 11).
Grab a release from Releases:
| Artifact | Use |
|---|---|
Finestra-Setup-<ver>.zip |
Extract, run Setup.exe — per-user install (%LocalAppData%\Programs\Finestra), no admin, Start-menu shortcut, uninstall entry. The installer is AnyCPU/MSIL so it runs on Windows RT too. |
Finestra-<ver>-portable.zip |
Extract anywhere, run Finestra.exe. Nothing registered — delete the folder to remove. |
One bundle covers all architectures — the right engine\<arch>\wfreerdp.exe is picked automatically
(x64 on 64-bit Windows, arm on Windows RT 8.1 and ARM32/ARM64). The x86 engine is not bundled;
on 32-bit Windows, drop a 32-bit wfreerdp.exe into engine\x86\ — see the README in that folder, or
lift the one from the 1.0.2 release, which shipped it.
Requirements
- .NET Framework 4.7+ (in-box on Windows 10 1703+).
- Windows RT 8.1: a jailbroken device (RT only runs unsigned desktop apps after jailbreak).
- Binaries are unsigned — SmartScreen will warn on first run (More info → Run anyway).
Installed copies keep your data (connections, host keys, certificates, settings) in
Documents\Finestra\, shared between installed copies and surviving upgrades and uninstalls.
The portable download instead ships a Finestra.portable file beside the exe, which keeps
everything in that folder — so a portable copy starts with no connections, does not see an
installed copy's profiles, and takes its own with it. Delete that file to use the shared location.
- No transfer cancel yet — a running file transfer completes or fails (queued ops wait).
- Plain-FTP drop detection is op-driven: an idle FTP tab discovers a dead link on the next operation (SSH/SFTP detect drops immediately).
- System-DPI aware (not per-monitor) — mixed-DPI multi-monitor setups may scale imperfectly.
- Very large directory listings (>~1,300 rows) can hit an owner-drawn list height limit.
See BUILD.md — including how to rebuild the modified FreeRDP engines for all three architectures (the practical half of the GPL corresponding-source offer).
Finestra is © 2026 Hamed Ghorbani, licensed GPL-3.0-only — see LICENSE.
Built on excellent open source — full texts in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt:
| Component | License |
|---|---|
| FreeRDP 3.28.0 + WinPR (modified — see FREERDP-MODIFICATIONS.txt) | Apache-2.0 |
| OpenSSL · zlib (statically linked in the engine) | Apache-2.0 · zlib |
| SSH.NET 2025.1.0 · BouncyCastle.Cryptography 2.6.2 | MIT |
| FluentFTP 54.2.0 · VtNetCore 1.0.30 · Newtonsoft.Json 13.0.4 | MIT |
| Roboto 3.009 (bundled UI font) | SIL OFL 1.1 |