Tuesday, May 29, 2012

New GPO’s for Windows Server 2012 related to RDS

imageWindows Server 2012 comes with some new Group Policy Objects (GPOs) related to Remote Desktop Services. I did an earlier blog post a new specific GPO for the Windows 8 client regarding Remote App Connections  (http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.com/2012/04/setting-default-remoteapp-connection.html) but here is a summary of the new GPO’s for the serve side:

The following policies are new for the Remote Desktop Session Host role service and apply to Remote Desktop Session Host connections:

Group Policy

Description

Connections - Turn Off Network Detection On Server

This policy setting specifies whether the Remote Desktop Protocol will try to detect the network quality (bandwidth and latency).

If you enable this policy setting, you must select one of the following: Connect Time Network Detect, Continous Network Detect, or Connect Time Detect and Continous Network Detect. If you select Connect Time Network Detect, Remote Desktop Protocol will not try to determine the network quality at the connect time, and it will assume all traffic to this server originates from a low speed connection. If you select Continous Network Detect, Remote Desktop Protocol will not try to adopt to changing network quality. If you select Connect Time Detect and Continous Network Detect, Remote Desktop Protocol will not try to determine the network quality at the connect time, it will assume all traffic to this server originates from a low speed connection; and it will not try to adopt to changing network quality.

If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, Remote Desktop Protocol will spend up to a few seconds trying to determine the network quality prior to the connection; and it will continuously try to adopt to the network quality.

Connections - Turn Off UDP On Server

This policy setting specifies whether the UDP protocol will be used for Remote Desktop Protocol access to this server.

If you enable this policy setting, Remote Desktop Protocol traffic to this server will only use the TCP protocol.

If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, Remote Desktop Protocol traffic to this server will use both the TCP and UDP protocols.

Remote Session Environment - Configure RemoteFX lossless graphics

This policy setting allows the administrator to configure RemoteFX graphics for Remote Desktop Session Host or Remote Desktop Virtualization Host servers to be lossless.

If you enable this policy setting, RemoteFX graphics will use lossless encoding. The color integrity of the graphics data will not be impacted.

If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, RemoteFX graphics lossless encoding will not be on.

Remote Session Environment - Configure RemoteFX Adaptive Graphics

This policy setting allows the administrator to configure the RemoteFX experience for Remote Desktop Session Host or Remote Desktop Virtualization Host servers. By default, the system will choose the best experience based on available nework bandwidth.

If you enable this policy setting, the RemoteFX experience could be set to one of the following options:

1. Let the system choose the experience for the network condition

2. Optimize for experience (balanced)

3. Optimize to use minimum network bandwidth

If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, the RemoteFX experience will change dynamically based on the network condition.

Remote Session Environment - Use the hardware default graphics adapter for all Remote Desktop Services sessions

This policy setting enables system administrators to change the graphics rendering for all Remote Desktop Services sessions on a Remote Desktop Session Host (RD Session Host) server.

If you enable this policy setting, all Remote Desktop Services sessions on the RD Session Host server use the hardware graphics renderer instead of the Microsoft Basic Render Driver as the default adapter.

If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, all Remote Desktop Services sessions on the RD Session Host server use the Microsoft Basic Render Driver as the default adapter.

NOTE: The policy setting affects only the default graphics processing unit (GPU) on a computer with more than one GPU installed. All additional GPUs are considered secondary adapters and used as hardware renderers. The GPU configuration of the local session is not affected by this policy setting.

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2012/03/28/get-started-with-remote-desktop-services-in-windows-server-8-beta.aspx

3 comments:

  1. Freek, how can I force an application, accessed over RDP, to use the server-side graphics adapter and it's OpenGL driver? Now I can start that OpenGL application on the server (2012), and from another computer I can make an RDP connection, log on with the same user, and I have my application, remote, using the OpenGL hardware acellerated graphics driver!


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  2. Freek, are there GPO's related to RDS that no longer apply in 2012 or function differently? For example in 2008r2 the RDSH needed to be in a rrDNS when setting up the farm (and there is a GPO to do it that says applies to at least Windows 2008). However in 2012 rrDNS farm name in 2012 refers to the RDCB not the RDSH. MS has not really updated wording in 2012 to make it clear.

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  3. Use the hardware default graphics adapter for all Remote Desktop Services sessions - it doesn't work completely. I have xeon E3-1240 v3 with Nvidia Quadro 4000 installed, Win 2012 R2, RDSH role installed in domain, this GPO enabled on both domain group policies at AD DC and at the RDSH - no way, just Basic Render works..

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