Microsoft Remote Desktop Services Reviews

• Resilience: Has alllowed our 24/7 acute hospital to run electronic prescribing on the wards with limited downtime or post-setup configuration.
• Thin provisioning: Our core applications mean that our WiFi connected devices can drop-off the network without causing patient record locks.

It has enabled our clinical staff to get real-time medicine prescribing information at the patients' bedside with a near 100% service uptime.

I think that the Single Sign-On (SSO) could be improved.

At release time, there was not a lot of information around. We invested some long hours researching. The documentation from Microsoft was difficult to find. Now there are plenty of step-by-step guides around.

I have used it for four years.

Initially, the configuration I setup used DNS round-robin. This was changed to a NLB setup on our session hosts.

This has improved the stability of the clients' Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connectivity. It has given us granular control over stopping connections for downtime/maintenance windows.

We did not encounter any scalability issues.

We actioned this with a limited budget. We completed it all in-house with no external technical support other than searching on the internet and testing.

We run Citrix alongside this solution for our internet connected clients. Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) was used primarily over our LAN/WAN.

The initial setup was a little complex. Like any thin client setup, some applications are trickier than others.

I could not see the benefits of using Citrix as you require RDS CALs regardless. We see this solution as a very good value.

We evaluated Citrix.

• We have found this to be very stable with a quite straightforward setup. However, Single Sign-On (SSO) certificates are a little fiddly.
• Ensure that the underlying infrastructure is fully tested, robust, and scalable.
• Our early problems stemmed from our hypervisor issues. Because clients only heard it was the RDS farm, I took a lot of heat on issues that were out of my control.

The ability to actually interface with a Windows desktop is valuable.

It makes things easier. The app that they provide you works off Mac and Windows. Even if I have my instance upon Azure or any other cloud platform, I can just use the normal Desktop Services app to give it an IP, the logon credentials, and just log in. It is done very easily.

Then it lets you into the VN. It creates sort of this window for you and allows you to interface with the VN. You can treat it as a separate window among your other apps. It actually works as a very good app on the underlying OS.

When I am connecting, I can do so from a Mac command line. However, to log in to a Windows server, I need to use this client. If Microsoft can find a way to remote into a Windows VN without using a client like this, that would be great.

I don't know how doable it is, or how easy it is to do, but maybe it's a limitation of the OS itself. Having a secondary app to log in to a remote VN is not ideal, but the app itself is very good.

We have been using this solution for a couple of years.

It is stable. It has never quit or crashed on me. It connects me to what I need.

Even if the VN is slow, it lets me know that the VN is slow and that there are issues with it. The app itself doesn't crash, which is good to know.

I don’t know whether it can scale to a large VN subset, or whether it can allow me the capability to log in to multiple VNs at the same time.

If that would work, I don’t know what the performance would be on it. I suspect that it wouldn't be that good. For personal use, it is a great app.

I haven't used their support at all. I never had the need to.

I would say absolutely get this product. For enterprise usage, I don't know how viable it would be. I am not very aware of all the capabilities within that app.

The idea is that if you are setting up separate VNs, you have to click on to get connected to each VN. It doesn't sound intuitive to me.

If they have an enterprise offering that goes away from that experience, I think it would be usable. But for just managing your own VN form, it is real easy. It's a personal VN form.

It becomes easy to use since I am using a Mac. It is easy for me to use Windows when I'm using the remote desktop. It's very compatible with Mac. It's easy for me to do any of my tasks that require Windows.

For my university project, I was doing a data mining project. I had a Mac which does not support the Excel field add-ons that only Windows supported. The report desktop feature helped me to just commute into it.

The speed should be a little more. When you're pitching from Mac to Windows, it takes a little more time than what is required. It can improve its speed. That's it. Everything else looks fine. I just started using it a year back, so that is what I can point out right now.

It has been a year that I have been using this solution.

It's stable. Actually, it is fast and compatible. It's quite reliable.

As of now, I haven't found the need to reach out for support. Everything was fine, so I didn't have any questions.

I recommend it. You can actually use it. I have worked as an intern in Electronic Arts and they do use it.

It allows access to the computer from any location.

I can telecommute into the office. Since we have to be on a secure network, it gives me access into my system at work that is more secure than my system at home.

There could be better options and it could be faster. I haven't had too many issues with it, but it's just a very basic program.

I haven't had any issues with the stability of the product.

I haven't experienced any scalability issues. Although, I can see some issues with it but for a small company right now, it's working.

We were using a previous solution. However, I needed ways to telecommute to the office and I came across this solution; it seemed like the best bet.

In my opinion, important factors while selecting a vendor are reliability, support (if needed) and scalability of the solution.

Load balancing: RDS Broker servers divide user sessions evenly among the RDS Host servers that host the applications. You can install multiple RDS Broker servers in an RDS cluster; this is built-in and no extra resources are needed. Optionally, the cluster can be made Highly Available if needed.

High Availability (HA): easy to set up - once the MS SQL database is created and the RDS Broker servers have the needed rights, the database is created automatically and HA is enabled.

Applications are ready for BYOD scenario’s, since RDP is a multi-OS/device technology. No more app testing for client OS migrations.

The valuable features I mentioned assure a stable and highly available environment with maximum uptime for business users. Also, they assure that assigned resources (application RDS hosts) are optimally used, without the need for any extra administrator intervention or monitoring.

Currently, installation of applications on an RDS farm must be performed manually on each server. This should be more controlled and automated.

Also, application sources are mixed on the file system and registry level. They should be in separate ‘containers’.

We did not have any problems with stability.

There are no issues with scalability. At any time, an RDS Host server can be added to any server collection. Also, some additional parameters allow us tocontrol and scale the expected user load (session limit, RDS Host weight).

Technical support is OK if you have MS Premier support.

We did not previously use a different solution.

Installation of the RDS farm was pretty easy. Configuration is a little harder; you need to configure trusted certificates (RDS 2012 allows HTTPS only), add groups and group policies for users, RDS hosts, server collections, etc.

Once configuration is done, management is easy.

There are two choices for RDS CALs (Client Access Licenses). Device CALs are cheap but allow low user mobility and require a high management effort (‘static’ or ‘task station’ scenario). User CALs are 20% more expensive, but offer high mobility and low management cost (‘dynamic’ or ‘mobile’ scenario).

We did not evaluate any other options.

My advice is to start in a lab environment to thoroughly test your infrastructure setup and configuration.

Use User CALs, they give much lower TCO.

Also, for applications you envision to provision on RDS, test whether they install correctly on Windows Server.

Remote desktop services are similar to terminal based settings where multiple terminals connect to a server. A user has the ability to run programs, view files, etc. Each session is independent and secure. All application execution takes place on the server. Allows for IT staff to install all software, databases, etc on the server rather than on individual pc's. Provides centralized management of operating system images.

Network bandwidth may limit a users experience with remote desktop services. If you don't have vpn/terminal access, you cannot use remote desktop. If network or server goes down, you cannot do any work. There may be some lag in running modern development tools.

For all users that love the convenience of being able to work from any location. Provides a secure network connection. There is the potential of lowering developers cost. A great way to get more work from your employees at all times.

The solution is user-friendly and has a good user experience. 

Microsoft should be more compatible with other operating system. 

I have been using Microsoft Remote Desktop Services for a few years. 

Microsoft is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

Only one user using the solution. 

Previously we used VMware but Microsoft is easy to deploy. 

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment takes a few seconds. 

There is a licensing cost. 

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

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