KB: Window is blank when you run a RemoteApp program that is located on a Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012-based server

Microsoft released a new KB (2982431) yesterday in regards to possible issues with Remote Apps that run child windows that call the RedrawWindow function. In those cases the child window could become blank. Microsoft has provided a hotfix for Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8.

More info & download: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2982431/en-us?sd=rss&spid=16526

KB: Shortcut menu items flicker as you move the mouse pointer over them in a RemoteApp in Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012

A new KB article (2925336) was released by Microsoft in regards to an issue with shortcut menu’s inside a Remote App published on Windows Server 2012 or Windows 8.

”…On a computer that's running Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012, you publish a RemoteApp application. However, when you use the RemoteApp application, you discover that shortcut menu items flicker as you move the mouse pointer over them…”

Source & download: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2925336/en-us?sd=rss&spid=16526

KB: You cannot log on to a virtual machine that is running Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 in a VDI environment

A new KB article (2795531) has been released to fix an issue related to unsuccessful connections to VM’s running on a RD Virtualization Host.

“…Consider the following scenario:

• You deploy a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment in a network.
• You enable the Remote Desktop Virtualization Host (RD Virtualization Host) role service on the Windows Server 2012-based computers.
• You try to log on to a virtual machine that is running Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 in the VDI environment.

In this scenario, you cannot log on to the virtual machine. The logon screen appears but the logon process cannot be completed.
Notes

• The previous corresponding remote session to the RD Virtualization Host does not log off.
• You may receive the following error message when you try to manually logoff the session in the Server Manager console:
• RD Connection Broker failed to process the connection request for user <domain>\<userid>.
  Failed while checking for disconnected session.
  Error: User is trying to connect to the same Pool more than once simultaneously…”

“…This issue occurs because the host computer does not receive a notification that the previous session has ended during the logoff operation. Therefore, the previous session does not log off successfully…”

Source and download: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2795531/en-us?sd=rss&spid=16526&wa=wsignin1.0

 

 

Dynamically enable the RDP setting Smart Sizing in RDP 8 (Windows 8)

On a client running Windows 8 (using Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0) you’re now able to dynamically turn on and off the RDP setting Smart Sizing.

This allows you to resize the RDP screen to scale it to your needs. Before RDP 8.0 you had to change this settings in the .RDP file before connecting. You can now dynamically switch this on and off while running the session without having to disconnect and reconnect.

Credits to fellow MVP Shannon Fritz for pointing this out:
http://blog.concurrency.com/infrastructure/smart-sizing-exposed-in-remote-desktop-ui-at-last-2/

RDP 8.0 update will be released later this month

The Microsoft Remote Desktop Virtualization Team released a new blog post containing a lot of details on the update for the Remote Desktop Client for Windows 7 updating it to the Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0 !

It also refers to a blog post by Karri Alexion-Tiernan did announcing the update later this month.

“…For businesses that have decided on VDI as the ideal solution, we have some exciting news regarding the Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0 Update for Windows 7. Once the RDP 8.0 Update is released later this month, it will apply to all Windows 7 SP1 instances; this includes your laptop or desktop device, as well as a Windows 7 SP1 virtual machines hosted in the datacenter and accessed through Microsoft VDI with Windows Server 2012. The RDP 8.0 Update will allow both the access device and the virtual machine being accessed to benefit from the same great enhancements in RemoteFX with Windows Server 2012. Additional detail about Remote Desktop Protocol 8.0 Update is available here…”

MS RDV Team blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2012/10/09/remote-desktop-protocol-8-0-update-for-windows-7-sp1-enabling-a-great-wan-user-experience-for-windows-7-sp1-virtual-desktops.aspx

Karri Alexion-Tiernan blog post: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/business/archive/2012/10/09/virtualization-beyond-vdi.aspx

Microsoft RDV Team: RemoteFX USB Redirection in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8

The Microsoft Remote Desktop Virtualization team posted a great blog post with some highlights on RemoteFX USB Redirection in Windows Server 2012. The features discussed:

• Dynamic In-Session USB Redirection
• Expanded USB Device Support
• USB Redirection for RD Session Host (Session Isolation)
• Windows PowerShell Interface for USB Redirection Configuration.

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2012/09/11/remotefx-usb-redirection-in-windows-server-2012-and-windows-8.aspx

Microsoft RDV team blog post –“Introducing the Remote Desktop Windows Store App”

The Microsoft Remote Desktop Virtualization team posted a new blog on MSDN about the Remote Desktop App, available in the Windows App Store.

Questions answered in the blog post:

• What do you get with the Remote Desktop app?
• How do you get the Remote Desktop app?
• What is the launch experience?
• How do you connect to a new PC?
• How do you interact with the remote PC?

View the blog post here:Introducing the Remote Desktop Windows Store App

“…In summary, the Remote Desktop app offers a fresh approach for accessing your remote PCs and RemoteApp programs. Please install this free Remote Desktop app from the Windows Store and try out the new experience today. With its rich features and touch-friendly UI, we hope you will have a pleasant RemoteFX experience…”

Introduction to Windows PowerShell scripting in Windows Server 2012 Remote Desktop Services (by RDS team)

The Microsoft RDS team released a new blog post on using Powershell for Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2012. It’s discusses the RemoteDesktop module, and contains many examples on the different cmdlets!

“…One of the new features that we’re all very proud of in Windows Server 2012 is a new Windows PowerShell layer, which provides a powerful set of functionality to set up, configure, and control your Windows Server 2012 Remote Desktop Services (RDS) deployments. The feature is too big to cover in one post, but I wanted to give you a quick introduction to help you get started with scripting your deployments in the Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate build. In this post I’ll give a brief overview of the kinds of tasks you can perform by using the new RDS Windows PowerShell layer, and then go a bit more in-depth with one of the Windows PowerShell cmdlets that you’ll likely be using a lot in your scripts (Get-RDServer), and finally finish up with a practical example showing how to use that cmdlet to install the Desktop Experience feature on all of the Remote Desktop Session Host (RD Session Host) servers in your deployment…”

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2012/06/28/introduction-to-windows-powershell-scripting-in-windows-server-2012-remote-desktop-services.aspx

New article: Troubleshooting RDS in Windows Server 2012

My new article titled "Troubleshooting RDS in Windows Server 2012" on virtualizationadmin.com just got published. The article is about ways to gather information to troubleshoot and debug RDS deployments using Windows Server 2012.

 Introduction
In this article we will look at some ways of collecting valuable information for troubleshooting issues in RDS environments when running Windows Server 2012 (up until now Windows Server 8 Beta…”

“…The different roles that are part of the Remote Desktop Services Platform have several log files, trace files and also event logs where information, statuses and errors are stored. This information can be rather useful when troubleshooting an installation or configuration.

The main part of this article will be around a log file that contains information about the installation and configuration process. This log file is called RDMSDeploymentUI.txt. You can find this log file…”

Read the complete article here:
http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/general-virtualization-articles/troubleshooting-rds-windows-server-2012.html

New Article: Remote Apps and the Metro RDP client

My new article titled “Remote Apps and the Metro RDP client" on virtualizationadmin.com just got published. The article is about the integration of RemoteApps running on Windows Server 2012 (8 Beta) launched from a Windows 8 client.

“…Introduction

Remote applications that run seamlessly on a client desktop have been around for some time now. With Windows Server 8 Beta, Microsoft has put in a good effort to make the RemoteApps on the Windows 8 desktop interact and integrate better than before. In this article, we will look at the integration of RemoteApps running on Windows Server 8 Beta launched from a Windows 8 client...”

Read the complete article here:
http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/vdi-articles/general/remote-apps-and-the-metro-rdp-client.html

RDS in Windows Server 8 (Beta) Feature Highlights

Windows Server 8 Beta is available since last week. I've already set up Windows Server 8 Beta in my lab to test some of the new features for Remote Desktop Services. Coming up on this blog is a series of at least 7 "Feature Highlight" blog posts in which I will discuss some of the great new features for RDS in Windows Server 8.

I'll update this blog post along the way as new feature highlight blog posts by adding links of the newly added blog posts. You can expect frequent updates, stay tuned!

Feature highlight no. 1 "Better High Availability of the RD Connection Broker"
http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/03/rds-in-win8-feature-highlight-no.html

Feature highlight no. 2 "RD Dedicated Redirector now part of RD Connection Broker" http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/03/rds-in-win8-feature-highlight-no-2-rd.html

Feature highlight no. 3 "Change password option in RD WebAccess"
http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/03/rds-in-win8-feature-highlight-no_12.html

Feature highlight no. 4 "Installing RDSH prior to a scenario based deployment, no requirement anymore"
http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/03/rds-in-win8-feature-highlight-no-4.html

Feature highlight no. 5 "E-mail subscription for Remote Apps"
http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/03/rds-in-win8-feature-highlight-no-5-e.html

Feature highlight no. 6 "Demo environment within just a few minutes"
http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/03/rds-in-win8-feature-highlight-no-6-demo.html

Feature highlight no. 7 "SSL configuration made easy"
http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/03/rds-in-win8-feature-highlight-no-7-ssl.html

My new article on VirtualizationAdmin about RDS in Windows 8

My new article on VirtualizationAdmin has been published today. See the introduction chapter below or click here to read the complete article

"...Introduction
The developer preview edition of Windows Server 8 has been around for a few months now. The Beta Release and Release Candidate still have to be released of course, but in this article, we will take a closer look at what Windows Server 8 is going to offer concerning management of Remote Desktop Services..."

Full link to complete article on VirtualizationAdmin:
http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/vdi-articles/general/taking-closer-look-what-windows-8-will-bring-regarding-management-rds.html