About Andy Milford

Greetings friends and current Remote Desktop Commander customers!  We’ve just released Version 4.8 of the Remote Desktop Commander Suite.  This new version offers:

• additional features for Windows Virtual Desktop management and monitoring;
• the ability to both live monitor and report on the new User Input Delay counter found on Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10;
• and numerous other product enhancements;

We’re also excited to announce a new promotion for WVD deployments and for customers who want to purchase multiple products before the end of this year!

In this RDPSoft E-Newsletter:

New WVD Features Available in Remote Desktop Commander Lite, Remote Desktop Commander Suite, and our Premium Management Features Solutions

User Input Delay Counter Tracking and Reporting on Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10

Other Product Enhancements in Version 4.8

Start a Free Trial Of Our New RDS Synthetic Monitoring Tool, Remote Desktop Canary

New Promotions

Version 4.8 Upgrade, Purchase, and Demo Links

New Windows Virtual Desktop Features Now Available in Version 4.8:

–Direct Querying of the WVD Broker To Import and Automatically List Hosts and Host Pools
–Internal (Within Azure VNet) and External (Outside Azure) Management Options
–Delegation of Administration For Your WVD Support Technicians

Import Hosts and Host Pools Automatically Inside Remote Desktop Commander Using the WVD Broker

In previous versions of Remote Desktop Commander, if you wanted to manage WVD hosts, you had to create a Computer Group first and then import your hosts from your Active Directory domain. No longer – now you only need to launch a simple dialog, enter in your tenant name and WVD admin credentials, and choose the WVD Management Mode (Internal/External) you want to use. Remote Desktop Commander will then dynamically query the WVD brokers to auto-generate all your host pools and associated hosts in the left hand tree view for you! But wait, there’s more:

Dual WVD Management Modes – Internal and External

When you set up a link to the WVD Broker above, you specify whether or not you want Remote Desktop Commander Lite to operate in Internal or External WVD Management Mode.

Internal Mode gives you the most feature-rich Windows Virtual Desktop management experience. In this scenario, you have installed Remote Desktop Commander Lite on a VM inside the Azure VNet hosting your WVD host pools, as a WVD RemoteApp or on a management VM you will access securely via Azure Bastion. This mode gives you all of the legacy, on-premises Remote Desktop Services management features, including the ability to shadow sessions and provide remote assistance with our Premium Management Features license, query performance counters related to user experience and connection quality, RDP via admin sessions into WVD hosts to do other management tasks, etc, etc.

External Mode gives you a less-feature rich WVD management experience, but does not require Remote Desktop Commander Lite to be deployed inside the Azure VNet with your hosts. You can install it on your own local computer, and still do basic session management tasks like logging off, disconnecting, and messaging users.

Similarly, you can import your hosts from host pools directly into the Remote Desktop Commander Suite’s Add/Manage Servers area, which makes adding in your WVD session hosts for monitoring a snap.

Delegate Out Windows Virtual Desktop Management Tasks To Support Desk Staff Using the New WVD Management Delegation Wizard in our Premium Management Features Solution

Earlier this year, we introduced our new Premium Management Features solution that fixed and greatly improved shadowing in Windows Server 2012/2016/2019 Remote Desktop Services deployments, as well as providing RDS delegation of administration features to support desk staff without making them admins on session hosts.

In Version 4.8, we’ve expanded our Premium Management Features solution to include a delegation of administration wizard for WVD. Now you can delegate rights – including shadowing – to support team members who need to manage your WVD deployment. Yes, that’s right, with our Premium Management Features tool, you can shadow Windows Virtual Desktop sessions without difficulty, and you can limit what your support desk technicians can do on your WVD hosts! All of this functionality only costs $99.99 USD per named admin/help desk user per year, so sign up today!

The WVD Management Delegation Wizard allows you to unify management permissions across all hosts in your WVD host pools, plus allows you to assign specific WVD access rights like “RDS Reader” and “RDS Contributor” to one or more users. It also allows you to set shadowing policies on each host.

Get A Handle On User Experience By Monitoring the New User Input Delay Counters Live or Historically on Server 2019 and Windows 10 RDS and WVD User Sessions

In Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10, Microsoft introduced the new User Input Delay counter. This performance counter tells you how long user input (e.g. keyboard clicks and mouse clicks) sits in the input queue on a RDS or WVD host, until it is received for processing by an application’s message queue. Latency may look fine, but if User Input Delay starts increasing because a session host is under load, that could be a sign that user experience is degrading to the point where you want to add more hosts or increase the VM instance size of your hosts.

You can now profile User Input Delay in real time using our free Remote Desktop Commander Lite client, and if you are a Remote Desktop Commander Suite customer, Version 4.8 includes two new “User Experience” reports that show you how User Input Delay looked over time in their sessions. Remember, in order to use this counter, your RDS or WVD hosts must be running Windows Server 2019 or Windows 10.

Other Product Enhancements in Version 4.8

Version 4.8 of the Remote Desktop Commander Suite has several other product enhancements and fixes, namely:

• We restored the actual client build number to the live session view in the Remote Desktop Session Navigator and in our Client Software Version reports. This makes it easier to ascertain the precise client levels each user is running.
• In some cases, the counters that keep track of actual RDP bandwidth transfer cannot be queried properly on Windows Server 2012 and later operating systems. Version 4.8 of the Remote Desktop Commander Suite has a new, more reliable method of tracking RDP bandwidth for the included RDP bandwidth reports.
• We fixed an issue related to reading performance counters on WVD hosts due to a recent Microsoft WVD agent update that was pushed out to WVD hosts in the last few weeks.

Take a Free Trial of Our New RDS Synthetic Monitoring Tool, Remote Desktop Canary

If you haven’t already heard, we launched a brand new product in November called Remote Desktop Canary.  It’s a powerful RDS synthetic monitoring tool that performs recurring logins into your RDS environments, notifying you immediately if it cannot logon or if a logon process takes too long.  It can record screenshots too of the login sequence so you can troubleshoot login script behavior.

Please click the link above to learn more about it, and if you’d like to start a free, 14-day trial, request one here.

Take Advantage of these Special End Of Year Offers

30% OFF NEW WVD DEPLOYMENTS OF OUR REMOTE DESKTOP COMMANDER SUITE

Want to deploy our Remote Desktop Commander Suite to monitor and manage your WVD infrastructure?  If you sign up for a monthly or annual subscription of the Remote Desktop Commander Suite AND book our White Glove Installation Service by December 31st, 2019, we’ll give you 30% off of your subscription pricing for the first 6 months!*  That’s a lot of savings you can apply to Azure SQL database subscription costs, and you’ll be guaranteed a pristine, optimized installation in your WVD environment.  Click here to request a quote, and in the comments section, type 30OFFWVD.

*Please note that this offer only applies to new Remote Desktop Commander Suite customers deploying our software into WVD in Azure.*

BUY MORE THAN ONE RDPSOFT PRODUCT, AND GET BUNDLED DISCOUNTS

Interested in purchasing more than one of our tools before December 31st, 2019?  Get a great #BundleUp Winter discount on two or more tools purchased together by the end of this year.  Simply request your quote, specify the tools you want, and in the comments section type BUNDLEUP.

Remote Desktop Commander 4.8 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 4.8 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.

Click here to learn more about the new Premium Management Features extension for the Remote Desktop Commander Client, and click here for a feature comparison between the Premium Management Features extension and the full Remote Desktop Commander Suite.

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