RDS in WIN8 Feature highlight no. 6 Demo environment within just a few minutes

RDS in WIN8 Feature highlight no. 6  Demo environment within just a few minutes

Setting up a RDS demo environment on a server or VM running Windows Server 8 (Beta) literally takes you a few mouse clicks and a few minutes. If you read my Feature Spotlight no. 4 (http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/03/rds-in-win8-feature-highlight-no-4.html) you know that installing the RDSH role as a prerequisite prior to the Scenario Based Deployment was a bug in the pre-beta release and is now fixed. This means that setting up a lab for demo-environments using the quick deployment only takes a few minutes. If you’ve ever setup a RDS lab or environment on Windows Server 2008 (R2) you’ll remember that it was always a hassle because you had to add the roles manually, add computers to the correct groups etc. The steps have not changed much compared to the pre-beta release, but I added them below to give you the complete story.

Open up the Server Manager Console and choose option 2, “Add roles and features”:

Choose next to start the deployment

Select the “Remote Desktop Services scenario-based installation”

As we want all the roles to be running on the same server, we choose the Quick Deployment option.

As we are going to be deploying sessions, not Virtual Desktops, we choose Session Virtualization.

We select the server where we want to install the roles

We confirm that we allow the deployment to reboot the server (needed for the RDSH role)

And that it! The Scenario Based Deployment will now install the RD Session Host, RD Connection Broker and RD WebAccess role, create a first Session Collection and add computer to the Active Directory Groups as needed.

To make the lab even more complete, several applications are already added to the Remote App sections and published on RD WebAccess to give you an environment that can be used for demo’s instantly!