Of course, some organizations need to view what users are actually doing inside their remote desktop sessions in order to assist them in a support session, or to audit their work in accordance with policy. Viewing Remote Desktop Session User Activities in Real Time With SuperShadow Viewing Multiple Remote Desktop Sessions At Once With the MiniView Dock Some of the available properties of the displayed remote desktop sessions include:
Users of our free Remote Desktop Commander Lite utility can quickly view sessions connected to their terminal servers, RDS collections, and WVD hosts, and then perform management actions like logging off disconnected or hung users, sending messages, checking on the quality of their connection, and much more. Here are three different ways we’ve made viewing Remote Desktop sessions easier: Viewing Session Properties Such as Idle Time, Connect Time & More Remote Desktop Commander Lite Helps You View Remote Desktop Sessions Properties
Currently, you must use the Windows Virtual Desktop control plane in the Azure Portal, which is even more feature limited than the Remote Desktop Services Manager in Server Manager for classic RDS deployments.Īt RDPSoft, we identified these pain points many years ago, and created an assortment of free and commercial solutions to solve these problems. In addition, attempting to shadow remote desktop sessions with MSTSC often does not work as expected, especially with multiple monitor sessions.Īnd what about viewing Remote Desktop sessions in Windows Virtual Desktop? Well, you don’t get much of a break there either. It is scarce in detail regarding these sessions, and it does not scale well in larger environments. Microsoft removed the old TSAdmin utility in Windows Server 2012 R2, replacing it with the often cumbersome Remote Desktop Services Manager in the Server Manager utility. Then, there’s the emergence of Windows Virtual Desktop in Azure. This is largely a result of some recent developments: There was the overhaul of Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2012 R2 and later server operating systems. You have likely noticed that viewing Remote Desktop sessions and related details has become increasingly difficult.
Training and Other Professional Services.RDS Synthetic Login Monitoring / Connection Time / Uptime Monitoring Tools.Remote Assistance RMM Tool + Delegation of Management for RDS/WVD Support Desk.Remote Desktop Commander Lite (Free RDS/WVD Management Tool).The Complete Monitoring and Management Bundle For RDS and AVD.In this demo, we’ll configure user profile disks for the collection later so that we don’t have to manually set NTFS file and share permissions. The virtual disk is only accessible in the given collection, so if a user is a member of a different collection, they will have different settings and app data. Each collection can be directed to a file share that stores a virtual disk for each user, and contains application data and settings. Microsoft has gone some way to solve the problem by creating user profile disks in RDS, starting in Windows Server 2012. Roaming profiles are not always an effective solution and in RDS environments can prove even more problematic. When you’re done selecting groups, click Next. By default, all domain users get access, but you can change this using the Add and Remove buttons. On the Specify user groups screen, add the domain users that can access this collection.For more information on working with Server Manager, see Managing Windows Server 2012 with Server Manager on the Petri IT Knowledgebase. To add RD Session Hosts to the collection, they must be members of the Server Pool. Note that the server I’m logged into is a member of Server Manager’s Server Pool, and it happens to be the only RD Session Host server in my RDS deployment. A RD Session Host servers to a collection (Image Credit: Russell Smith)