Terminal Services Part 3: The RDC Client
Along with the two server-side parts talked about in Part 2, there is a third component of Terminal Services that is required at the client side. The Remote Desktop Client or RDC is a necessary tool to be used at every client to connect to a Terminal Server. This client is invoked by the user when they wish to connect to a Terminal Server’s desktop or published RemoteApp and is responsible for the communication between the client and server.
For the purposes of this series, the RDC client of choice is v6.1 which is currently available for Windows XP and Vista. This version of the client is natively available with Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1, or can be downloaded for Windows XP Service Pack 2 at this site.
With version 6.1 the RDC aggregates together two functionalities that were previously separated. Previous versions separated out direct client requests that were initiated by users with those that were hosted on a web site. In the case of direct connections, the user would need to type a server name into the RDC to start a connection. Web connections in previous versions leveraged the use of an ActiveX control, allowing users to click hand-coded connections on a web page to connect to server desktops. With v6.1, these two functionalities have been combined into a single client that accomplishes both. In my recent book Windows Server 2008: What’s New / What’s Changed, I talk about the other compelling new capabilities that come with this version:
Screen resolution. Previous RDCs limited the maximum resolution for connected sessions to what was once the incredible size of 1600×1200, but over time as the size of monitors got larger and widescreen monitor use became widespread this grew to become a limitation. With RDC v6.0 the maximum screen resolution has been increased to 4096×2048.
Color bit depth. Along with the increase in size comes an increase in the total color quality brought down to the client. The maximum color depth for RDC v6.1 is 32-bit color also called True Color. Though before setting all your clients to this heightened level remember that an increase in color bit depth corresponds in an increase in total quantity of data sent from server to client. Increasing this value beyond what is necessary will result in a reduced user experience.
Font smoothing. The new client provides support for ClearType fonts, referred to as font smoothing in Microsoft parlance. ClearType with Vista and Office 2007 becomes a valuable feature partially due to Office’s new default fonts that rely on ClearType for proper rendering. It also becomes an issue with LCD monitors where ClearType makes the fonts render correctly. One important note about enabling font smoothing is that this feature will cause a significant increase in bandwidth per concurrent session as the graphics engine renders fonts as bitmaps. Caveat emptor.
Desktop composition. If you like the Vista Aero effect, enabling this setting will bring it down to the client session. This only works when the client is installed on a Vista machine and the server is either another Vista machine or Server 2008 with the Desktop Experience Feature installed.
Connected devices. With previous RDC versions you could integrate local disk drives, printers, and serial ports into the Terminal Services session. But Plug-and-play devices like digital cameras and media players were not options. With RDC 6.1, any Plug-and-play device that supports the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) or the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) is supported. The redirection of plug-and-play devices only works when the client is installed on Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate.
Monitor spanning. It is now possible to configure the TS session to span across multiple monitors. But interestingly enough, this functionality cannot be done within the client GUI itself. To enable spanning across multiple monitors, start the RDC with the command mstsc /span. You must position spanned monitors side by side and the total resolution cannot exceed 4096×2048.
Single Sign-On. If you’re tired of signing on a second time to every TS session, Single Sign-On is now available when Vista clients connect to Server 2008 instances. Two steps are necessary to enable this: First open Terminal Services Configuration, right-click the RDP-Tcp connection, and then select Properties. Ensure that the Security Layer is set to Negotiate or SSL (TLS 1.0). Then, create a Group Policy (either locally or in the domain), navigate to Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System | Credentials Delegation and enable the setting for Allow Delegating Default Credentials. For a domain Group Policy, the system stores this setting in the file CredSsp.admx.
Server Authentication. Clicking the Advanced tab, you’ll see a window titled Server authentication. Enabling this feature requires the server to be at Windows Vista or Server 2008 with the Security Layer (discussed in the previous bullet point) set to Negotiate or SSL (TLS 1.0); it provides an extra layer of authentication between the client and server prior to connecting.
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