In putting together a small RDS (Session Based) environment on Server 2016 today today I kept running across the error message below during the installation. Failed: Unable to install the role services. After much back and forth between forums and event viewer it turns out our default policy to disable TLS 1.0 on servers was the issue. Enabling TLS 1.0… Read more
Tag: Remote Desktop Services
Securing Remote Desktop Protocol Port 3389 – Tools
Following on from more work with OpenVAS and after resolving issues around PHP/MySQL the next largest priority was flagged as issues with the Remote Desktop Server (this applies if the server is being used as a Session Host or is just running Windows Server/Client). Here are two pointers in the right direction to get these port 3389 issues resolved! SSL/TLS:… Read more
5 fun applications to think about when deploying Smart Cards
Looking for some fun ways to get more out of your your Smart Card deployment? If so have you tried……? Use Smart Cards to login to your Servers via Remote Desktop Use Smart Cards with the PowerShell Get-Credential Commandlet Use Smart Cards with your Firewall for single sign on Use Smart Cards to login to IIS Web Applications (just a box… Read more
Microsoft Application Virtualization Cookbook now out
After a fair few months of work and with support from the team at PACKT my new book (Microsoft Application Virtualization Cookbook) is out on sale. With over 60 recipes for the practical application of Microsoft Application Virtualization (Version 5) from every angle including… Setting up your first App-V infrastructure Deploying the software clients and prerequisites Sequencing applications into packages Publishing applications and… Read more
Custom RemoteFX RDS Farm – Stress test 2 – How many users per server?
Its looking like we got our sizing for our custom RDS servers right and we may well have answered (at least for own internal use) ‘how many users can you get on a RDS server?’. The video shows our RDS farm under normal load with 24 clients remotely logged in (excluding the admin session I was using) with the CPU… Read more
Connect to a Particular RDS Server in Load Balanced Farm
Sometimes you will want to connect to a particular server in a RDS load balanced farm (maybe you want to perform a particular update on that server or something similar) however when you RDP onto it the load balancer kicks in and you may not get the server you were after. The simple solution is to start a remote desktop session to… Read more
Custom RemoteFX RDS Farm – Farm Architecture + Hardware Specs
Following on from my first post I am going to look at what will make up by RemoteFX RDS farm including the software and hardware architecture. First I’ve started out as you would with any small RDS farm; in this case with 4 session hosts and a single connection broker (which will also act as licence server). The 30 endpoints are pointed… Read more
Custom RemoteFX RDS Farm – The Intro
Sufficed to say budgets are still tight for schools and nothing chews through the budget more than replacing a computer room full of PCs. One alternative has always been to convert the PCs in the room to ‘fat thin clients’ with a small OS (say Windows Thin PC) and hook them up to a Terminal Server/Remote Desktop Services Farm. The biggest… Read more
Axel M80 thin client – nice for the office not so sure about the classroom
A little while ago the guys at Axel let me borrow one of their M80 thin clients to try out with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box and also Microsoft RDS (Server 2008 R2) and I’m happy to say I can easily see this as a good thin client to use in the office although I have my reservations about use in classroom. This review… Read more