Remote Desktop Services (RDS), known as Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and earlier,[1] is one of the components of Microsoft Windows that allow a user to initiate and control an interactive session[2] on a remote computer or virtual machine over a network connection.
RDS is Microsoft's implementation of thin client architecture, where Windows software, and the entire desktop of the computer running RDS, are made accessible to any remote client machine that supports Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).
RemoteFX was added to RDS as part of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1.
Windows includes four client components that use RDS: The first two are individual utilities that allow a user to operate an interactive session on a remote computer over the network.
Windows XP Home Edition does not accept any RDC connections at all, reserving RDS for Fast User Switching and Remote Assistance only.
Only by acquiring additional licenses (in addition to that of Windows) can a computer running Windows Server service multiple remote users at one time and achieve virtual desktop infrastructure.
[6][9] For an organization, RDS allows the IT department to install applications on a central server instead of multiple computers.
RDS and Windows authentication systems prevent unauthorized users from accessing apps or data.
In late December 2004 the two companies announced a five-year renewal of this arrangement to cover Windows Vista.
When a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client connects to this port, it is tagged with a unique SessionID and associated with a freshly spawned console session (Session 0, keyboard, mouse and character mode UI only).
The RdpDD.sys is the device driver and it captures the UI rendering calls into a format that is transmittable over RDP.
[3][14] Once a client initiates a connection and is informed of a successful invocation of the terminal services stack at the server, it loads up the device as well as the keyboard/mouse drivers.
It handles the job of authenticating clients, as well as making the applications available remotely.
In addition, the terminal server may be configured to allow connection to individual programs, rather than the entire desktop, by means of a feature named RemoteApp.
It can be used to configure the sign in requirements, as well as to enforce a single instance of remote session.
The official MS RDP client for macOS supports RD Gateway as of version 8.
In October 2021, Thincast, the main contributor of the FreeRDP project, published the first Remote Desktop Gateway solution running natively on Linux.
When sharing applications individually (rather than the entire desktop), the windows are managed (whether they are minimized or maximized) independently at the server and the client side.
[26] Network Level Authentication (NLA) is a feature of RDP Server or Remote Desktop Connection (RDP Client) that requires the connecting user to authenticate themselves before a session is established with the server.
Network Level Authentication delegates the user's credentials from the client through a client-side Security Support Provider and prompts the user to authenticate before establishing a session on the server.
Network Level Authentication was introduced in RDP 6.0 and supported initially in Windows Vista.
It uses the new Security Support Provider, CredSSP, which is available through SSPI in Windows Vista.
RDC presents the desktop interface (or application GUI) of the remote system, as if it were accessed locally.