Added new RDS related TechNet wiki articles

I have converted several of my blog posts related to Windows Server 2012 (previously Windows Server 8 Beta) into Wiki’s and added them to Microsoft's TechNet Wiki. Feel free of course to edit them where needed or add new content!

A quick overview of the new Wiki’s so far

Landing pages:

• Scenario Based Deployment of RDS in Windows Server 2012
• Installing and configuring RD Connection Broker High Availability in Windows Server 2012
• Deploying and configuring RD WebAccess in Windows Server 2012
• Deploying and configuring RD Gateway in Windows Server 2012

Wiki subpages:

• Deploying the RDS Quick Start deployment type in Windows Server 2012 (for Session Virtualization)
• Deploying RD Connection Broker High Availability in Windows Server 2012
• RD Connection Broker HA and the RDP properties on the client
• RD Connection Broker HA – SQL Permissions
• Enabling the RD WebAccess Expired password reset option in Windows Server 2012
• Adding folders in RD WebAccess in Windows Server 2012
• Publishing RemoteApps in Windows Server 2012
• Changing the default port of RD Gateway in Windows Server 2012
• Configuring UDP support on the RD Gateway in Windows Server 2012

You can also easily access the main Portal Page and go straight to the RDS section by browsing to http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/275.aspx#R

Poor performance occurs when you shadow a Remote Desktop session in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7

Today a new KB article and hotfix have been released for RDS on Windows Server 2008 R2 related to performance issues when shadowing a session. I actually experienced this myself recently. Good to see there's a fix!

UPDATE: The KB seems to be taken offline on the 10th of May. Hopefully temporarily! I’ll update the blog post again when it’s online again.
Article ID: 2685909 - Last Review: May 9, 2012 - Revision: 1.0
Poor performance occurs when you shadow a Remote Desktop session in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7
"...Consider the following scenario:

• You start a Remote Desktop session to a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 and that has the Remote Desktop Services role installed.
• You remotely control (or "shadow") a different Remote Desktop session by using the Remote Desktop Services Manager Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in.

In this scenario, the CPU usage for the Remote Desktop Services Manager MMC snap-in increases to 100 percent.

Note This issue can also occur on a computer that is running Windows 7 and that has the Remote Server Administration Tools feature installed. When the issue occurs, the CPU usage for the Server Manager MMC snap-in increases to 100 percent.

This issue occurs because there are messages in the message queue to be processed by the UI thread when the Remotecontrol option is clicked. However, the message queue is shared across threads, and other threads cannot process the messages..."

Source and download: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2685909/en-us?sd=rss&spid=14134

You are disconnected from a RemoteApp application when you minimize the main frame window of a RemoteApp application that is published in Windows Server 2008 R2

Today a new KB article and hotfix have been released for RDS on Windows Server 2008 R2. In a specific scenario a RemoteApp session could be disconnected on a computer that supports the Remote Applications Integrated Locally (RAIL) feature.

Article ID: 2696020 - Last Review: May 9, 2012 - Revision: 1.0
You are disconnected from a RemoteApp application when you minimize the main frame window of a RemoteApp application that is published in Windows Server 2008 R2
"...Consider the following scenario:

• You install the Remote Desktop Session Host role service on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2.
• You publish a RemoteApp application on the computer that supports the Remote Applications Integrated Locally (RAIL) feature.
• You connect to the RemoteApp application from a client computer.
• You minimize the main frame window of the RemoteApp application.
• There are no other visible top-level windows.

In this scenario, you are disconnected from the RemoteApp application..."

Source and download: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2696020/en-us?sd=rss&spid=14134

RemoteApp session is disconnected when the RDP encryption level is set to Low and RDP compression is disabled in Windows Server 2008 R2

Today a new KB article and hotfix have been released for RDS on Windows Server 2008 R2. In a specific scenario a RemoteApp session could disconnected and additionally, the following error message is raised: "Because of a protocol error this session will be disconnected. Please try connecting to the remote computer again"

Article ID: 2699817 - Last Review: May 9, 2012 - Revision: 1.0
RemoteApp session is disconnected when the RDP encryption level is set to Low and RDP compression is disabled in Windows Server 2008 R2

"...Consider the following scenario:

• You install the Remote Desktop Session Host role service on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2.
• You configure the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) encryption level to Low, and then you disable RDP compression.
• You publish a RemoteApp program on the computer.
• You connect to the RemoteApp program from a client computer.

In this scenario, the RemoteApp session is disconnected intermittently. Additionally, you receive the following error message:

Because of a protocol error this session will be disconnected. Please try connecting to the remote computer again.

 

This issue occurs because an incomplete window instruction is sent to the client computer..."

 

Source and download: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2699817/en-us?sd=rss&spid=14134

Windows Server 2012 Remote Desktop Services, by Klaas Langhout, a Director of Program Management in the RDS team

Yesterday a blog post by Klaas Langhout, a Director of Program Management in the Microsoft RDS team was published on blogs.technet.com. A blog post on behalf of the entire Remote Desktop Virtualization Team. A good read!

“…For Windows Server 2012 we listened to our customers and partners and added the most desired features and resolved the top pain points in Remote Desktop Services (RDS). Following a description of RDS, I’ll summarize some of the many dramatic improvements we have made.
For those people that are not familiar with RDS, it is the workload within Windows Server that enables users to connect to virtual desktops, session-based desktops and RemoteApp programs. The key value that RDS provides is the ability to centralize and control the applications and data that employees need to perform their job from the variety of devices that the employee uses. This provides “work anywhere from any device” while ensuring that your control and compliance needs are met.
In the previous release, we received consistent feedback that:

1. RemoteFX was very popular however its underlying protocol (RDP) did not provide a great experience over Wide Area Networks (WANs)
2. Session and virtual machine infrastructures were complicated and costly and
3. The administration experience was not simple.

Windows Server 2012 addresses each of these issues….”

Read the complete blog post here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2012/05/09/windows-server-2012-remote-desktop-services-rds.aspx

Quest released vWorkspace ThinShell version 2.5

Last week Quest has released vWorkspace ThinShell version 2.5 last week!

“…Shell replacement allows organizations to transform their existing PCs into thin-behaving clients or to simplify a thin client deployment. ThinShell accomplishes this by replacing the windows shell with its own much slimmer shell interface. Users power on their access device, are prompted for a user name and password and are then presented with their virtual workspace…”

Some of the new features in this release:

“…New User Interface- We have added a sleek, new interface to ThinShell making it easier to use and more configurable. In addition to the new look, the new interface allows administrators to control which options the end users can see and use.

Support for Windows 7 and WES -ThinShell has added support for Windows 7 and Windows Embedded Standard 7.

Password Manager support- ThinShell users can now change their domain password using the ThinShell interface.

Command Line Configuration- The location of the ThinShell Settings XML file can now be set at runtime using command line switches.

Legal Notice- ThinShell now can prompt the end user with a notification before a connection is made to the virtual workspace…”

Community announcement: http://communities.quest.com/community/vworkspace/blog/2012/04/24/product-release-quest-vworkspace-thinshell-25

Download:
https://support.quest.com/Search/SoftwareDownloads.aspx?ProductID=268445634&ProductName=vWorkspace

New article: Prevent those unwanted applications from running in RDS

My new article titled "Prevent those unwanted applications from running in RDS" on virtualizationadmin.com just got published. The article is about using Applocker on Remote Desktop Services.

“…Introduction

These days Desktop Virtualization is a hot topic. Many service providers, system integrators and other companies provide some way of Desktop Virtualization to their end-users. This can be done by providing a set of Remote Applications (RemoteApps) or full desktops on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or Remote Desktop Service (RDS) environment or even a mix of these technologies. When it comes to publishing a full desktop (whether it is VDI (Desktop Virtualization) of RDS (Session Virtualization) you would want to have a method to allow users to only run applications that you authorized them to. Although this is absolutely important for both VDI and RDS scenarios you can imagine that enforcing such a policy is especially important in a RDS environment as you are sharing servers with multiple users..”

Read the complete article here:
http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/vdi-articles/general/prevent-unwanted-applications-running-rds.html