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How To View Remote Desktop Sessions In 3 Different Ways

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You have likely noticed that viewing remote desktop sessions and related details has become increasingly difficult. This is largely a result of some recent developments: There was the overhaul of Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2012 R2 and later server operating systems. Then, there’s the emergence of Windows Virtual Desktop in Azure.

Microsoft removed the old TSAdmin utility in Windows Server 2012 R2, replacing it with the often cumbersome Remote Desktop Services Manager in the Server Manager utility. It is scarce in detail regarding remote desktop sessions, and it does not scale well in larger environments. In addition, attempting to shadow remote desktop sessions with MSTSC often does not work as expected, especially with multiple monitor sessions.

What about viewing remote desktop sessions in Windows Virtual Desktop? Well, you don’t get much of a break there either. Currently, you must use the Windows Virtual Desktop control plane in the Azure Portal, which is even more feature limited than the Remote Desktop Services Manager in Server Manager for classic RDS deployments.

At RDPSoft, we identified these pain points many years ago, and created an assortment of free and commercial solutions to solve these problems. Here are three different ways we’ve made viewing remote desktop sessions easier:

Viewing Remote Desktop Sessions Properties Such as Idle Time, Connect Time & More

Remote Desktop Commander Lite Helps You View Remote Desktop Sessions Properties

Users of our free Remote Desktop Commander Lite utility can quickly view remote desktop sessions connected to their terminal servers, RDS collections, and WVD hosts, and then perform management actions like logging off disconnected or hung users, sending messages, checking on the quality of their connection, and much more.

Some of the available properties of the displayed remote desktop sessions include:

  • Username
  • Server Name
  • Winstation Name
  • Client IP
  • Client Build Number
  • State (Active/Disconnected)
  • Idle Time
  • Connect Time
  • Session ID
  • RDP Bandwidth

Viewing Remote Desktop Session User Activities in Real Time With SuperShadow

Viewing Multiple Remote Desktop Sessions At Once With the MiniView Dock

Of course, some organizations need to view what users are actually doing inside their remote desktop sessions in order to assist them in a support session, or to audit their work in accordance with policy. If so, our Premium Management Features solution is a very affordable way to do so, giving admins, help desk workers, and managers the ability to view and remote control remote desktop sessions in RDS and WVD with ease.

Multiple remote desktop sessions can be viewed and/or interacted with at the same time inside the MiniView dock, and specific sessions can be brought into sharper focus with powerful resizing features.

Viewing Remote Desktop Session Activity On a Historic Basis To Analyze Performance & Monitor User Activity

Reviewing Remote Desktop User Screen Captures
Administrators and Managers Can View Recorded Remote Desktop Session Activity After the Fact With the Remote Desktop Commander Suite

Finally, some businesses need to have full insight into how the remote desktop session activity of various users impacts the performance of their terminal servers. They may also need to record terminal server sessions to satisfy auditing and compliance or security policies on their network. In these scenarios, our Remote Desktop Commander Suite is the best tool for the job.

After administrators deploy a lightweight agent service on each terminal server or WVD host, the main Remote Desktop Reporter Service collects all of this information into a central SQL database, such as CPU and Memory utilization per process and per user session, TCP/UDP network activity per user and per process, and screenshots with window captions for added context. Managers and server admins can then review this activity to spot performance problems and/or any user activity that violates Acceptable Use Policies on corporately owned IT assets.

Want To Learn More?

Reach out so that we can provide you even more information. You can request a demo, request a quote, or you can even contact us via phone.

Remote Desktop Commander v5.0 Now Available!

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Greetings friends and current Remote Desktop Commander customers!  We’ve just released Version 5.0 of our Remote Desktop Commander and Premium Management Features solutions.  This new version offers something for everyone- whether you use our free Remote Desktop Commander Lite Client, or you have a license for our commercial products.  For instance:

  • The Remote Desktop Commander Suite now comes with a brand new dashboard and report to track CPU usage by application, plus a new Agent Tuning Wizard and Agent Polling Diagnostics report. 
  • Our Premium Management Features overlay now offers the Client Side Connection Analyzer, which makes it very easy to troubleshoot RDP disconnects and other connection problems that your users experience on their Windows PCs.
  • The Remote Desktop Commander Client now displays, sorts, and groups by user session connection time.

We’re also excited to announce a new promotion that is valid until March 31st, 2021, and to share with you Andy’s very candid take on Windows Virtual Desktop, so please read on!

In this RDPSoft E-Newsletter:

Track Terminal Server CPU Usage By Application

Tune Our Agent Service Using a New Agent Diagnostic Report and Polling Tuning Wizard

Troubleshoot RDP Disconnects With the Client Connection Analyzer

Session Connection Time Now Available in the Remote Desktop Commander Client

Complete Monitoring and Management Bundle Promotion For Existing Customers

Windows Virtual Desktop – Separate Fact From Fiction, and Look Past the Hype

Version 5.0 Upgrade, Purchase, and Demo Links

Quickly Find Out Which Applications Use the Most CPU on Your Terminal Servers

CPU Use By Application Report

Several of our customers have asked for the ability to quickly find out which programs are using the most memory on their terminal servers, much like we already do with dashboards that profile application memory use.

Version 5.0 now supports this feature. You can either use the new CPU Use By Application Dashboard to review this, or you can run or schedule the CPU Use By Application Report.

For more information on this, including a full demonstration video, please read this recent blog article covering Terminal Server CPU usage and more.

CPU Use By Application Report

Centrally Optimize Our Agent Service and Run Diagnostics With a Click of a Button

Many of our customers choose to deploy the Remote Desktop Reporter Agent Service on their session hosts to collect additional insights on terminal server performance, or to enhance user activity monitoring. Due to the fact that no RDS or WVD environment is alike, in terms of things like server load, disk space available for SQL Server, etc, it is often necessary to tweak agent service parameters. Such parameters include the rate at which the agent service gathers data, the rate at which the master Remote Desktop Reporter service gathers the agent data, and the type of data collected by the agent.

Previously, this was done manually on individual session hosts by changing registry settings or redeploying the agent with different installer command line parameters.

In Remote Desktop Commander Version 5.0, you can adjust agent polling rates and other agent related settings centrally. Simply make the desired changes in a wizard, then let Remote Desktop Commander contact each session host to adjust the polling parameters and restart the agent service for you.

Remote Desktop Commander Polling Tuning Wizard
The Remote Desktop Commander Polling Tuning Wizard quickly reconfigures all agent and master polling parameters to increase/decrease agent service resource use and database storage requirements

Similarly, Version 5.0 now includes an Agent Diagnostics Report, which presents statistics about how agents are performing on your session hosts. For instance, you can view the average number of data points each agent transmits during each polling cycle, how quickly the agent service is gathering that data, and how quickly it is transferring that data to the primary Remote Desktop Reporter service across the network. You can then use the results of this report to fine tune agent polling intervals within the Polling Tuning Wizard mentioned above.

Agent Diagnostics Report
Run the Agent Diagnostics Report to find out how our agent service is performing on each of the session hosts where it is deployed

Figure Out What’s Causing RDP Disconnects and Make Your Users Happy Again!

Ever had a user who just could not stay connected to your Remote Desktop Services deployment? They’ll promptly call up your IT department and offer vague complaints, telling you that their terminal server client (e.g. MSTSC.EXE) is trying to reconnect constantly, their session freezes and then they get kicked out, and on and on.

While previous versions of our Remote Desktop Commander Suite have been able to produce reporting on the latency and quality of the RDP collection for specific users, most of the valuable information regarding disconnects and other RDP connection failures exists on the client’s Windows computer, NOT the terminal servers themselves.

Client Side Connection Analyzer
The Client Side Connection Analyzer, part of our Premium Management Features solution, makes it easy to troubleshoot RDP connection problems for specific users.

So, to make your life as an administrator or help desk tech easier, we created the Remote Desktop Connection Analyzer and built it into our Premium Management Features product. You can now send users having issues to our website, to download a lightweight applet which they run with no special user rights required, and no installation required. The applet will quickly gather up and translate all the RDP disconnection reasons, plus relevant registry keys that affect the Terminal Services Client and the Windows update history on their computer. It will then save all of this data to an encrypted file and prompt them to send that file back to you.

From there, you simply load that file into the Client Side Connection Analyzer, and voila! – you have the information you need at your fingertips. You can even do further research on the disconnect reasons via Google with a single click.

For more information on the Client Side Connection Analyzer, including a demonstration video, see this article on RDP disconnects.

Track and Sort By Session Connection Time in the Remote Desktop Session Navigator

Users of our Remote Desktop Commander Suite or our free Remote Desktop Commander Lite tool are very familiar with the Remote Desktop Session Navigator. This is the portion of the Remote Desktop Commander Client that allows you to manage active sessions and processes on RDS, WVD, and Citrix deployments.

When in Session View, you can sort and group sessions by things like Client Build, Username, Computer, Idle Time, etc. Many of our users have also requested that we include the Session Connection Time, so they can see when the user initially established their session on the server. Also, if you allow users to establish multiple sessions on terminal servers or on the farm in general, this feature comes in handy, as you can identify the oldest of a specific user’s sessions.

RDS Session Connection Time
Now you can group and sort by session connection time in the Remote Desktop Session Navigator

Note: If you upgrade your existing Remote Desktop Commander Suite or Remote Desktop Commander Lite programs (see below), you may need to make this new column visible first. Simply right mouse click on the column headers in the Remote Desktop Session Navigator, then place a check by the Connect Time column, and it will become visible.

Are You An Existing Customer of One Of Our Tools? Step Up To the Complete Monitoring and Management Bundle With This Special Offer

More and more of our clients are opting to purchase the Complete Monitoring and Management Bundle, which gives them access to all three of our monitoring and management tools for RDS and WVD – the Remote Desktop Commander Suite, Premium Management Features, and Remote Desktop Canary.

If you already have a subscription to one or two of our three tools, and would like a quote to step up to the bundle, click here to request a quote from sales, and indicate in the form that you want to step up to the bundle. If you then step up to the complete bundle of products before March 31st, 2020, you will be entitled to a special discount that further reduces your monthly or annual cost for 12 months. You’ll quickly see that for very little extra cost per server, you can get the comprehensive monitoring, reporting, alerting, and management tools you need to run your RDS or WVD environment successfully!

Let’s Get Real About WVD

Yes, we’re an original Microsoft WVD partner, and yes, we anticipate that this technology will grow over time, but it’s very important that you have a true understanding about the pros and cons of WVD before you consider migrating away from Classic RDS.

In the first two articles of his new blog series, our CEO and Microsoft MVP Andy Milford challenges a ton of assumptions about WVD, and questions some of Microsoft’s motives around decisions like:

  • refusing to make Windows 10 Multisession available outside of Azure,
  • the inability to use WVD infrastructure components with session hosts located outside of Azure,
  • the cost of WVD compute and Azure IaaS compute as compared to running RDS on-premises or in a private cloud,
  • various WVD licensing pitfalls, especially for MSPs and ISVs.

Andy has written the first two blog posts in the series. See:

WVD – The Bloom Is Off The Rose – Part 1
WVD – The Bloom Is Off The Rose – Part 2

He is just getting started though, and there are many additional posts that will be added shortly to this blog series, so stay tuned!

Remote Desktop Commander 5.0 Upgrade, Purchase, and Demo Links

If you are an existing Remote Desktop Commander SUITE subscription licensee and/or active maintenance agreement holder, click here to request upgrade instructions.

If you are an existing Remote Desktop Commander Lite or Premium Management Features customer, proceed to the Remote Desktop Commander Lite download page to download Version 5.0 of the client.  Then install it over your previous version.

If you’d like to learn more about the Remote Desktop Commander Suite, including its feature set and how to start a subscription for only $9.99 per server per month, click here.

If you’d like to learn more about Premium Management Features, including its feature set and how to start a subscription for only $99.99 per named admin or technician per year, click here.

Request a web demo with an RDPSoft solutions expert to see all our solutions’ features in depth.

RDP Disconnects

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Hello everyone. I’m excited to tell you about a brand new feature we’ve added to Version 5 of our Premium Management Features product, the Client Side Connection Analyzer. Please watch the video below and read on to learn more about it.

Troubleshooting RDP disconnects for your users becomes super easy with our Client Side Connection Analyzer

Troubleshooting RDP Disconnects Is Tricky

If you’ve worked with RDS for a while, you probably know how difficult it is to troubleshoot RDP disconnections and other connection problems. There’s nothing that is logged on the terminal server side that is particularly helpful, other than being able to checking out latency and RDP loss and retransmission rates with our Remote Desktop Commander Suite solution.

Windows Updates Can Break MSTSC.EXE

In many cases though, the problem exists on the client computer side, not the server side. The user’s computer may have a Windows update applied that is interfering with Remote Desktop Services, or conversely they may not YET have a critical update installed. Remember the CredSSP problems a few years back, and how that wreaked havoc on terminal server admins worldwide?

Registry Settings Can Break MSTSC.EXE

Users, or their internal IT staff, may also have set registry values on their end that effect how the Windows Terminal Services Client (MSTSC.exe) works, and unless you know what they’ve done, it will be impossible for you to troubleshoot.

Client Side Event Logs Are the Definitive Source Of RDP Disconnect Reasons

Did you know that buried in Windows event logs on a client computer, there are actual error codes that indicate the problem the client encountered when trying to connect, or when it was prematurely disconnected from a session? They are there, but they are hard to find, and you have to translate their numeric codes to actual messages to make sense of them. It’s tricky to say the least.

If you needed to gather up all of this information from the client yourself to troubleshoot your problem, you could easily spend a whole afternoon buried in an RMM tool, exporting event logs, and then trying make sense of the error codes.

This is why we created the Client Side Connection Analyzer – it takes all of the work out of this process.

Use Our Client Side Connection Analyzer to Figure Out The Reasons Behind RDP Connection Problems

Simply send the user you are helping to a special area of our website, where they can download a lightweight tool that will gather up all of this information. They don’t need to install anything on their PC, and it will run with standard user rights.

The Client Side Connection Auditor collects all of the information you need from users about RDP disconnects, registry settings, and applied updates, and helps the user send it back to you for troubleshooting.

Once it gathers everything up and stores it in an encrypted file, it will prompt the user to email that file back to you, or to save it and transmit it to you via a different method.

Troubleshooting RDP Disconnects with the Client Side Connection Analyzer
Review and research all relevant information about RDP Disconnects inside the Client Side Connection Analyzer

Once they’ve sent that data file back to you, you can open it up in the Client Side Connection Analyzer and examine everything of importance, such as disconnect reasons, MSTSC related registry keys, and the installed Update History from their PC. You can also see the build and version of Windows displayed in the Title Bar.

You can research any of the RDP disconnect reasons, Terminal Services Client registry keys, or Windows updates online with a single mouse click. Our tool also includes search functionality and the ability to step through all entries one by one.

Start a Subscription For Only $99.99 Per Named Admin and Technician Per Year

Let’s be frank – time is money. For only $99.99 per named admin or technician per year, you can leverage this powerful tool to clean up your users’ RDP connection problems.

And, since it is part of our powerful Premium Management Features package for RDS, Citrix and WVD, you will also be able to take advantage of our much improved RDP shadowing and Citrix remote assistance features. Not only that, you can delegate common RDS, WVD, and Citrix management tasks to non-administrators.

Again, time is money. Start an annual subscription with us today!

Terminal Server CPU Usage By Application

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Version 5.0 of the Remote Desktop Commander Suite introduces a new dashboard and report that tracks terminal server CPU usage by application. Whether you run Remote Desktop Services (RDS), Citrix, or Windows Virtual Desktop, figuring out which programs are taxing processor time the most is only a single click away.

Watch how easy it is to profile Terminal Server CPU usage by application

Using the CPU Use By Application Dashboard To Track CPU Usage by Remote Desktop Services Programs

First, make sure you have deployed the Remote Desktop Commander agent to each of your remote desktop servers, Citrix hosts, or WVD hosts. Once agents have been deployed and are collecting data, go to the Reports and Dashboards menu, and select the CPU Use By Application Dashboard.

Terminal Server CPU Use By Application

Choose the time frame you want to evaluate. Quickly, the Remote Desktop Commander Suite calculates the CPU usage per remote desktop application, and sorts programs by greatest to least usage.

If you want to dive into the user session where the application was running, highlight the process name, and click “Open Selected Session.” That recorded remote desktop services session will then be displayed, and you can see all the activity and performance impact of all processes in that user session.

Using the CPU Use By Application Report To Keep an Eye on Programs That Regularly Tax the CPU on Remote Desktop Session Hosts

  • From within the CPU Use by Application Dashboard, you can click the small Report (Printer) icon to immediately generate an instant report of what is currently displayed in that dashboard.
  • OR, you can click “Run Reports” from the Reports and Dashboards Menu, select the Performance reporting category, and then select the Performance (Agent Required) – CPU Use By Application report from the list. Running a report this way allows you to further filter out terminal server CPU usage by things like Remote Desktop Session Host name, user or Active Directory group name, or even process name.
  • Similarly, in the “Run Reports” menu, you can schedule a daily instance of this report so you can track which programs are impacting CPU resources the most on your WVD, Citrix, or RDS hosts.
Terminal Server CPU Use By Application Report

Of course, you can also profile memory and CPU usage by terminal server session in the Remote Desktop Commander Suite, and you can find out which applications use the most memory on a regular basis, via other dashboards and reports.

What are you waiting for? Sign up today for a monthly subscription to the Remote Desktop Commander Suite at only $9.99 per terminal server monitored per month.

Or, learn more about our Complete Monitoring and Management Bundle for RDS/WVD, where you can have access to all three of our RDS monitoring and management tools for only $16.99 per terminal server per month.

From the RDPSoft Blog

SPLA Reporting Made Easy

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