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Applies To: Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019

Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMan) RDCMan is a simple connection manager that gives you a single source that you can call upon to complete your remote desktop tasks throughout the day. It is quite an old application now, so the styling and general layout is a little bare when compared to commercial products.

Hello Friends,This tutorial will show you how you can enable multiple remote desktop connection for single PC from different users.1:- to enable multiple re. Users can quickly connect to multiple PCs without manually entering the credentials repeatedly. This way you can connect to multiple Microsoft remote desktop or terminal services from a single interface. Even, the login credentials and connection preferences can be stored and managed in folders or sub-folders.

When it comes to supported configurations for Remote Desktop Services environments, the largest concern tends to be version interoperability. Most environments include multiple versions of Windows Server - for example, you may have an existing Windows Server 2012 R2 RDS deployment but want to upgrade to Windows Server 2016 to take advantage of the new features (like support for OpenGLOpenCL, Discrete Device Assignment, or Storage Spaces Direct). The question then becomes, which RDS components can work with different versions and which need to be the same?

So with that in mind, here are basic guidelines for supported configurations of Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server.

Note

Make sure to review the system requirements for Windows Server 2016 and system requirements for Windows Server 2019.

Best practices

Microsoft Remote Desktop Multiple Connections Free

• Use Windows Server 2019 for your Remote Desktop infrastructure (the Web Access, Gateway, Connection Broker, and license server). Windows Server 2019 is backward-compatible with these components, which means a Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2012 R2 RD Session Host can connect to a 2019 RD Connection Broker, but not the other way around.

• For RD Session Hosts - all Session Hosts in a collection need to be at the same level, but you can have multiple collections. You can have a collection with Windows Server 2016 Session Hosts and one with Windows Server 2019 Session Hosts.

• If you upgrade your RD Session Host to Windows Server 2019, also upgrade the license server. Remember that a 2019 license server can process CALs from all previous versions of Windows Server, down to Windows Server 2003.

• Follow the upgrade order recommended in Upgrading your Remote Desktop Services environment.

• If you are creating a highly available environment, all of your Connection Brokers need to be at the same OS level.

RD Connection Brokers

Windows Server 2016 removes the restriction for the number of Connection Brokers you can have in a deployment when using Remote Desktop Session Hosts (RDSH) and Remote Desktop Virtualization Hosts (RDVH) that also run Windows Server 2016. The following table shows which versions of RDS components work with the 2016 and 2012 R2 versions of the Connection Broker in a highly available deployment with three or more Connection Brokers.

Support for graphics processing unit (GPU) acceleration

Remote Desktop Services support systems equipped with GPUs. Applications that require a GPU can be used over the remote connection. Additionally, GPU-accelerated rendering and encoding can be enabled for improved app performance and scalability.

Remote Desktop Services Session Hosts and single-session client operating systems can take advantage of the physical or virtual GPUs presented to the operating system in many ways, including the Azure GPU optimized virtual machine sizes, GPUs available to the physical RDSH server, and GPUs presented to the VMs by supported hypervisors.

See Which graphics virtualization technology is right for you? for help figuring out what you need. For specific information about DDA, check out Plan for deploying Discrete Device Assignment.

GPU vendors may have a separate licensing scheme for RDSH scenarios or restrict GPU use on the server OS, verify the requirements with your favorite vendor.

GPUs presented by a non-Microsoft hypervisor or Cloud Platform must have drivers digitally-signed by WHQL and supplied by the GPU vendor.

Remote Desktop Session Host support for GPUs

The following table shows the scenarios supported by different versions of RDSH hosts.

VDI support for GPUs

The following table shows support for GPU scenarios in the client OS.

RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter (vGPU) support

Note

Because of security concerns, RemoteFX vGPU is disabled by default on all versions of Windows starting with the July 14, 2020 Security Update and removed starting with the April 13, 2021 Security Update. To learn more, see KB 4570006.

Remote Desktop Services supports RemoteFX vGPUs when VM is running as a Hyper-V guest on Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2016. The following guest operating systems have RemoteFX vGPU support:

• Windows 7 SP1
• Windows 8.1
• Windows 10 1703 or later
• Windows Server 2016 in a single-session deployment only

Discrete Device Assignment support

Remote Desktop Services supports Physical GPUs presented with Discrete Device Assignment from Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2019 Hyper-V hosts. See Plan for deploying Discrete Device Assignment for more details.

VDI deployment – supported guest OSes

Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 RD Virtualization Host servers support the following guest OSes:

• Windows 10 Enterprise
• Windows 8.1 Enterprise
• Windows 7 SP1 Enterprise

Note

• Remote Desktop Services doesn't support heterogeneous session collections. The OSes of all VMs in a collection must be the same version.
• You can have separate homogeneous collections with different guest OS versions on the same host.
• The Hyper-V host used to run VMs must be the same version as the Hyper-V host used to create the original VM templates.

Single sign-on

Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 RDS supports two main SSO experiences:

• In-app (Remote Desktop application on Windows, iOS, Android, and Mac)
• Web SSO

Using the Remote Desktop application, you can store credentials either as part of the connection info (Mac) or as part of managed accounts (iOS, Android, Windows) securely through the mechanisms unique to each OS.

Microsoft Remote Desktop Multiple Connections Windows 10

To connect to desktops and RemoteApps with SSO through the inbox Remote Desktop Connection client on Windows, you must connect to the RD Web page through Internet Explorer. The following configuration options are required on the server side. No other configurations are supported for Web SSO:

• RD Web set to Forms-Based Authentication (Default)
• RD Gateway set to Password Authentication (Default)
• RDS Deployment set to 'Use RD Gateway credentials for remote computers' (Default) in the RD Gateway properties

Note

Due to the required configuration options, Web SSO is not supported with smartcards. Users who login via smartcards might face multiple prompts to login.

For more information about creating VDI deployment of Remote Desktop Services, check out Supported Windows 10 security configurations for Remote Desktop Services VDI.

Using Remote Desktop Services with application proxy services

You can use Remote Desktop Services with Azure AD Application Proxy. Remote Desktop Services does not support using Web Application Proxy, which is included in Windows Server 2016 and earlier versions.

The Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) provides remote display and input capabilities over network connections for Windows-based applications running on a server. RDP is designed to support different types of network topologies and multiple LAN protocols.

Note

This topic is for software developers. If you are looking for user information for Remote Desktop, see Windows Support. If you are looking for IT professional information for Remote Desktop, see Remote Desktop Services on TechNet.

Basic Architecture

RDP is based on, and an extension of, the ITU T.120 family of protocols. RDP is a multiple-channel capable protocol that allows for separate virtual channels for carrying device communication and presentation data from the server, as well as encrypted client mouse and keyboard data. RDP provides an extensible base and supports up to 64,000 separate channels for data transmission and provisions for multipoint transmission.

On the server, RDP uses its own video driver to render display output by constructing the rendering information into network packets by using RDP protocol and sending them over the network to the client. On the client, RDP receives rendering data and interprets the packets into corresponding Microsoft Windows graphics device interface (GDI) API calls. For the input path, client mouse and keyboard events are redirected from the client to the server. On the server, RDP uses its own keyboard and mouse driver to receive these keyboard and mouse events.

In a Remote Desktop session, all environment variables—for example, variables determining color depth and wallpaper enabling and disabling—are determined by the RCP-Tcp connection settings. This applies to all functions and methods that set environment variables in the Remote Desktop Web Connection Reference and the Remote Desktop Services WMI Provider interface.

Features

Microsoft RDP includes the following features and capabilities:

Encryption

RDP uses RSA Security's RC4 cipher, a stream cipher designed to efficiently encrypt small amounts of data. RC4 is designed for secure communications over networks. Administrators can choose to encrypt data by using a 56- or 128-bit key.

Bandwidth reduction features

RDP supports various mechanisms to reduce the amount of data transmitted over a network connection. Mechanisms include data compression, persistent caching of bitmaps, and caching of glyphs and fragments in RAM. The persistent bitmap cache can provide a substantial improvement in performance over low-bandwidth connections, especially when running applications that make extensive use of large bitmaps.

Roaming disconnect

A user can manually disconnect from a remote desktop session without logging off. The user is automatically reconnected to their disconnected session when he or she logs back onto the system, either from the same device or a different device. When a user's session is unexpectedly terminated by a network or client failure, the user is disconnected but not logged off.

Clipboard mapping

Users can delete, copy, and paste text and graphics between applications running on the local computer and those running in a remote desktop session, and between sessions.

Print redirection

Applications running within a remote desktop session can print to a printer attached to the client device.

Microsoft Remote Desktop Multiple Connections Windows 10

Virtual channels

By using RDP virtual channel architecture, existing applications can be augmented and new applications can be developed to add features that require communications between the client device and an application running in a remote desktop session.

Remote control

Computer support staff can view and control a remote desktop session. Sharing input and display graphics between two remote desktop sessions gives a support person the ability to diagnose and resolve problems remotely.

Remote Desktop Connection App Download

Network load balancing

RDP takes advantage of network load balancing (NLB), where available.

Microsoft Remote Desktop Assistant

In addition, RDP contains the following features:

Microsoft Remote Desktop Multiple Connections

• Support for 24-bit color.
• Improved performance over low-speed dial-up connections through reduced bandwidth.
• Smart Card authentication through Remote Desktop Services.
• Keyboard hooking. The ability to direct special Windows key combinations, in full-screen mode, to the local computer or to a remote computer.
• Sound, drive, port, and network printer redirection. Sounds that occur on the remote computer can be heard on the client computer running the RDC client, and local client drives will be visible to the remote desktop session.