What's New in Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2016

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Applies To: Windows Server Technical Preview

The following features have been added to Remote Desktop as part of Windows Server 2016. Most items include a link for more information - be sure to check out those links.

After you install the latest version of Windows Server 2016 and have had a chance to try out some of these great new features, drop by the Remote Desktop Service user voice forum to let us know what you think.

Personal session desktops

Administrators can now deploy server-based personal desktops in Windows Server 2016. With personal session desktops, each user gets an assigned RD Session Host (RDSH) VM - the admin can optionally enable administrative rights for users. See Introducing Personal Session Desktops by Clark Nicholson for more information.

Support for Gen 2 VMs

You can now use Gen 2 VMs (virtual machines) with Remote Desktop. You can use Gen 2 VMs as template images for pooled/personal VM collections and personal session desktop collections. There's no additional configuration required, so deploy at will.

Pen remoting support

Pen devices - like those available with Surface Pro 3 devices - are now supported for use through Remote Desktop connections. Technically, you always could use the pens, but it was treated like a mouse. Now we treat pen devices as equal to your mouse, fingertip, and keyboard. David Bélanger has a great post covering how to use pen remoting.

Edge support in RDSH

You may have heard that we released a new Web browser - Microsoft Edge. Test Edge in Remote Desktop to see how it handles your apps and meets your needs.

OpenGL applications and guest VMs in Remote Desktop

RemoteFX vGPU support in Windows Server 2016 adds support for OpenGL applications and Windows Server 2016 guest VMs. Check out the RemoteFX vGPU information in the RDS blog to get more details and step-by-step instructions on how to test this support.

Windows Multipoint Services

Multipoint services is a low-cost, single-server multi-user solution that is easy to deploy and easy to manage. Multipoint is now part of Windows Server 2016 as an optional role, instead of a separate product. When you enable the Multipoint services role, we also install RDSH.

For more details on this new feature, particularly an FAQ, see Tanmay Bhagwat's post on MultiPoint Services on the RDS blog.

Client updates

We regularly update our Remote Desktop clients - see Microsoft Remote Desktop Clients for the latest details.

But, in particular, you should check out these: