Microsoft Remote Desktop Services Primary Use Case
Terje Romen
CEO & Owner at a retailer with 1-10 employees
In a way, we have some virtual solutions, at least RDS from Microsoft Hyper V. That's what we're using today, but not for everyone. Some people do use it. It's more like remote desktop. It's been a long time, at least since Windows Services 2008 or around 2010.
Today, most of our users, among three or four companies sharing software like the ERP system, work on individual workstations or laptops. That's really the main use across the companies today, however, it would sometimes make sense to look at remote Desktop or VDI. My impression is that most solutions, especially today, make sense for large corporations with two thousand seats or more.
So far, we have not used anything besides remote Desktop for, for example, accountants working from various locations or not based in our offices. That's really how we do it today.
View full review »PE
Phil Ernst
Chief Technology Officer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
My primary use case for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is for remote access to a work computer, which includes working from home and accessing a work computer or server management. It involves being able to remotely access the server and get to the console.
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reviewer2784348
AWS Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
My main use case for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is to connect to servers from laptops, and sometimes it's even Mac macOS laptops.
For example, in my company, we have MacBook Pro as work computers, and most of our clients have Windows servers, so the best way to connect to the Windows servers is through RDP clients.
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Microsoft Remote Desktop Services
December 2025
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Remote Desktop Services. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Asutosh Mohanty
Technology Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
My current use case for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is connecting to services which are specific to a remote location because I am working from India. There are times that I need to connect to those services, so via Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, I access that system because I need to connect to VPN. Some services are specific to a particular location and shouldn't be accessed here, so I connect to that Remote Desktop to use it. It's mainly for support and management activities.
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RobertThompson 1
Information Security Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
We use it primarily to provide virtual desktops to our end users, which allow them to access email, word processing, and other essential applications.
View full review »MN
MuhammadNadeem2
SAP manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
My company uses the capabilities of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services to connect with Windows from home.
AA
Anto Anish
Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
We have a lot of Microsoft services configured for different applications. We use the solution to access them.
AP
AngeloPerkusich
Executive Director/ Head of Innovation at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
We use it for file repositories, project sharing with Teams, and most of our business intelligence work. We manage around 30 to 40 projects using these resources, mainly on SharePoint.
We use SharePoint here since we're a public university. We have access to all Microsoft platforms. Also, we use Google for email, but they're restricting access for public universities, so we're mostly migrating to Microsoft.
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Akos Szirmai
Application Development Specialist at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
I needed the solution to connect to a service. I need fixed IPs. When I'm working from home, I have a dynamic IP. One of our clients has opened a server with a fixed IP for us. We connect to the server using Microsoft Remote Desktop Services.
View full review »reviewer1564452
Head of IT at a engineering company with 10,001+ employees
The solution is a remote desktop service to connect outside our company.
View full review »reviewer2084424
Head of Infrastructure and Application Support Department at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
We primarily use the solution for security purposes. For example, blocking copy-paste.
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OğuzKalaycı
system engineer at a recruiting/HR firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
The users connect to a central server and share the physical or visual server resources. They use the remote desktop environment for office documents, operations, and company-specific programs.
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Neeraj Tiwari
Student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
I use the tool to switch to my company’s Windows desktop from my personal system.
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Abul Fazal
Service Delivery Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
We have many customers that are using Microsoft Remote Desktop Services for publishing internal applications through the services. The process involves virtualizing applications for internal and external users and making them accessible through Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and reverse proxy services. By doing so, users can indirectly access the applications without logging into the server directly. The solution is used mostly for external company users.
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Donathon Ong
Head of Infrastructure at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
We primarily use the solution for remote desktop services. It can be used locally or on the cloud. It's on every single Windows machine.
If you need a remote desktop for Windows 10, or Windows 2016, you use RDP, which is Remote Desktop Services.
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Paul Robbertze
Technical Support Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
My company uses Microsoft Remote Desktop Services for our company's accounting software, which doesn't have a cloud solution. In our company, we deployed a server with the help of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services.
Sandeep_Patil
Senior Technical Consultant at a security firm with 11-50 employees
We use it on the customer side. We use the product as remote desktop services.
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Dariusz Barcikowski
IT Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
I primarily use the solution for online work.
View full review »PB
Pascal Burume
IT consultant
I was exploring a different feature, particularly trying to deploy active directory domain services. Hence, as an IT administrator, I needed to enable a Remote Desktop Service feature that allows me to connect remotely to the server in just a matter of seconds, so that was my use case for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services.
I was trying to install Microsoft Office on the computer remotely, which means connecting to the server through Microsoft Remote Desktop Services to see if the server has access to the internet or whenever an update needs to be installed.
RS
RafalStas
CEO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
We primarily use the solution as a remote desktop.
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Leonardo Marouvo
Southern Europe Customer Success Manager at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
The first use case was related to the development and testing environment. Before COVID, it was also for remote connections for work from home, to have access to a protected environment.
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Tonny Keuken
Web Manager at a healthcare company with 1-10 employees
I primarily use the solution as a remote desktop. I'm using it over a VPN and SSH too.
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Mihai Dinca
Information Technology Consultant at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
We use the solution for accessing services in our infrastructure, and also, since it's a remote service solution, the desktop infrastructure.
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Mohd Abdul Aziz Shah Sulaiman
Endpoint & Digital Workplace Management at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
My current role is as an Assistant General Manager in Point Application Services. I am a global administrator for Microsoft 365. We chose this solution based on the requirements we had.
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Dennis Oo Jenn Ning
IT Director at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
We use the solution for support and remote access to servers.
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NATARAJA ATMAKURI
Professional : Quality at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
We have some of our client applications deployed onto the RDS platform, and we need to test those applications through RDS Web Access. We need to test how external users access these applications from different networks, like the cloud gateway or external locations. As a part of the QA team, I need to check if users can access the applications without any issues.
View full review »DB
Damnam BAGOLIBE
Security engineer at a printing company with 11-50 employees
We use the solution as a remote desktop. It allows us to access Windows services.
View full review »NM
Nurah Muhamme
Head, Technical Operation at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
The product helps assess our system.
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Surojit Dutta Roy
Senior IT Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I use RDS to connect our servers.
View full review »reviewer1444884
IT consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
The solution is primarily for remote desktop services. It's used to start up a desktop service, and we can use a password and a user name to work remotely on other servers.
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Yousra Azzouz
Head of Systems Analysis at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
We use it in our bank.
We have some servers, and more than two users go remotely with them. We prepare with the Microsoft engineer servers that take them and the license for the users when they need them.
View full review »reviewer2783844
Software developer at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
My main use case for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is to connect to remote servers in the cloud that I use in my back-end application.
View full review »DK
Dimitar Kavrakov
CEO at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
The solution helps users to access desktops remotely.
View full review »reviewer2092029
CEO at a recruiting/HR firm with 11-50 employees
We predominantly use Microsoft Remote Desktop Services to access our server. Our team works remotely and needs to log in to perform tasks such as billing. We had two options: either use our existing internal infrastructure or move to the cloud. However, we also required remote printing services so that team members could print from their local desktops. To achieve this, we implemented terminal printing services, VPN, and remote desktop. The purpose was to enable both on-site and remote team members to perform billing tasks, invoicing, and tracking truck movement.
reviewer1908987
Ict Manager at a transportation company with 201-500 employees
We have deployed Microsoft Remote Desktop Services for logistics, CNC, and machine shop areas. I think that is very flexible in order to provide the correct maintenance and deploy the services.
FG
Ferdi Graupe
Independent Consultant at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
We use it to connect to the legacy system.
View full review »reviewer1877232
PAM Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
I use Remote Desktop to do a credential swap where it goes from being the explicit user accessing the endpoint to a privileged credential.
What I do is, in the connection process with RDP, the user logs into the PAM tool as first name.last name, which is his normal domain account. However, BeyondTrust, with the remote desktop connection, substitutes the user's first name.last name with a privileged credential that looks like his name. It would be like A-first.last. This is so that we can also perform session recording and keystroke logging, as well as keep a detailed log of who is connected to which desktop and which account.
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Francesco Pisacane
Group Cyber Security Manager at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
It allows me to remotely take control of a desktop if my wife or son has a problem.
View full review »JG
Jim Graue
Support Technician at a non-profit with 1-10 employees
We predominantly use RDS to connect up to a computer and a LAN. We are non-profit and help other non-profits with their technology. We are customers of Microsoft.
View full review »reviewer1694097
Process Control and Automation Engineer - PCD Administrator at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
We use Microsoft Remote Desktop if we want, for example, to help a user that has a problem. We can also use it to take the control of a computer on a remote location.
View full review »it_user1324368
Technical Manager at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
I'm a technical manager and we are customers of Microsoft.
View full review »it_user1549326
ICT Infrastructure Specialist at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Our use case is two-fold. We use it for securing workplaces in our on-premise environment for remote users. We also use it for management. We manage most of our environments from a secure remote desktop in our data center. We connect through a remote desktop gateway with a two-factor application installed there.
reviewer1319745
Senior Software Analyst at a university with 201-500 employees
When I'm in the office I use the solution to connect to another server to look at files or services that are running, things like that. When working from home I use it to connect to our VPN and then to my work computer and pretty much do everything that way. I'm a senior software analyst at an educational institution and I believe we have a partnership with Microsoft.
View full review »MK
Mitja Kelenc
System Organizer at a translation and localization position with 1-10 employees
We have a group of users who work remotely for us, as well as others who connect to our computers from various locations.
View full review »CD
Chirag Dash
Software Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
If any of our clients using the internet are facing an issue, we connect Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and troubleshoot the exact issue.
View full review »RH
Ramon Hinojosa
Director at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Our primary use case is for accessing Visual Basic.
View full review »reviewer1185063
Sr. Manager of Software and Controls at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is used to connect to other systems.
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Kannan Raja
Senior Executive at a leisure / travel company with 201-500 employees
We're using Microsoft Remote Desktop to remotely log into computers via terminal services.
View full review »HB
Helberth Bayona
ENGINEER IT at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
We use the latest update.
View full review »DS
Daleep Singhal
System and DBA at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We are using Microsoft Remote Desktop Services in one of our departments and we connect to our applications through this solution remotely.
View full review »JA
Jose Adan Arias
Network Consulting Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
We use this solution to test the conductivity from the user to the server equipment.
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Joe Appelgryn
Implementation Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
We are using Microsoft Remote Desktop Services for small-scale virtual desktop applications. It is utilized for normal desktop usage.
View full review »AS
Ahmed Saad
Tellers at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
I am using this product to do my PowerPoint presentations, keep my records, and perform my database queries.
I also use it for integration.
View full review »reviewer1353171
Senior Technical Consultant - Private Sector at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The primary use case of this solution is for application virtualization, actual application location, and location setting.
View full review »reviewer1353171
Senior Technical Consultant - Private Sector at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
We primarily use this product for application virtualization and application sharing.
View full review »reviewer1338708
Microsoft UC Solutions Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
We are a solution integrator and Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is one of the products that we have been implementing for our clients. This software provides a Windows 10 desktop on a virtual machine.
It's a multi-session VDI solution that allows people to work from home. It allows users to access company resources and applications, which is important because we don't want them using their personal home networks to access corporate devices. This helps prevent problems such as the introduction of a computer virus from home to office.
View full review »it_user1066779
System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
We are a solution provider and this is a product that we implement for our customers.
We use Microsoft RDS in conjunction with VMware for desktop virtualization.
View full review »reviewer937473
Systems Administrator at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
This is our primary tool for monitoring our services.
View full review »YY
Yasser.Youssef
IT Infrastructure and Operations General Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
We are using Cisco AnyConnect to create a VPN that Microsoft Remote Desktop Services uses to connect to and control a remote computer.
View full review »it_user968307
Product Owner IT Services at a recreational facilities/services company with 10,001+ employees
We use Remote Desktop Services for a few things. My experience started with Microsoft Remote Desktop when I tried to reuse really low power desktop machines to turn them from these desktop machines into class remote desktop terminals. That is my initial experience with Microsoft Remote Desktop. My most current experience with Microsoft Remote Desktop is using a specific Microsoft product on the servers where you don't have any chance to administer them using the web browser. SCCM, active directory administration and other Wintel server roles are most handy and the most secure to administer from the Microsoft Management Console. Therefore, you need to do it at least from some instance of the Microsoft windows server.
reviewer1212501
Information Systems Consultant at a aerospace/defense firm with 51-200 employees
The primary use case of this solution is to improve mobility and to access current sessions from different locations.
View full review »it_user822975
Database Administrator with 51-200 employees
We use this solution for remote desktop services.
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Ahmed Nagm
IT Solution Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
We use the solution for remote access. I use Microsoft Remote Desktop Services to troubleshoot or reboot the service of my mobile or tablet applications.
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Loredana Ababei
3rd Level Support Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
I use the solution to connect to different servers.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services
December 2025
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Remote Desktop Services. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,853 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Remote Desktop Services Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2025
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