Greetings, RDPSoft friends and customers!
We’re thrilled to let you know that Remote Desktop Commander v8 is now available and, with it, brand new features that let you collect client-side metrics from Windows 10 and Windows 11 PCs that connect to RDS, AVD, or Parallels RAS environments! Plus, the Remote Desktop Commander Suite now ships with Microsoft SQL Server 2025, which supports databases up to 50 GBs in size! If you are currently running Azure Virtual Desktop and are spending serious money on Azure Monitor and Azure Log Analytics, you need to take a good look at Remote Desktop Commander and our Complete Monitoring and Management Bundle for EUC – why pay for log storage and ingestion, when you can get better monitoring, management, and remediation with our tools instead?
Our version 7 release of the Remote Desktop Commander Suite introduced a new Digital Employee eXperience (DEX) Dashboard, which assists RDS/AVD admins and help desk techs in pinpointing performance issues on their session hosts. Whether it is a host with too many users, poor latency between user and server, laggy apps due to slow file servers or database servers, or misbehaving service applications on a host, our DEX dashboard helps you visualize the biggest problem immediately.
Unfortunately, not all issues with a RDS or AVD connection are under your direct control. Users will always blame you for their poor user experience but, many times, it’s something on their side that is ultimately causing the issue.
What might cause issues on the client side, you may ask? Many things, such as:
- Poor WiFi – you don’t control your user’s home or office network, but you’ll certainly hear about it when their connection drops;
- Routing issues – you also don’t control their local ISP and the route the RDP protocol takes to your Remote Desktop Gateway, VPN, or AVD gateway servers;
- High CPU or memory load on their PC, due to background applications -or the fifty million browser tabs they have open on their personal PC- in addition to the ones they’ve opened server side;
- High disk or network I/O on their PC due to open applications streaming videos or performing other high I/O tasks;
- Out of date Windows updates or funky RDP client settings.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to glean all of this information, with a few mouse, clicks directly from the client’s PC? You would have the ammunition you need to show them that the problem is on their side, and also to suggest some things they can do to improve their experience. Well, in Remote Desktop Commander Suite v8, you can! Please read on for more details:
In this RDPSoft E-Newsletter:
Remote Desktop Commander Suite v8 Beta Introduces Client-Side Endpoint Diagnostics for Windows 10 & 11 PCs
Remote Desktop Commander Now Ships with SQL Express 2025 – and a Huge New 50 GB Size Limit
The April Security Update for Windows 11 is Scaring Users and Breaking RDP Functionality – Here’s How To Fix It
Upcoming Price Changes for the Remote Desktop Commander Suite and Our Legacy Monitoring Bundle
Still Giving Users Local Admin Rights on Your RDS or AVD Hosts Due To Legacy Apps? A New Solution in the Market Helps You Avoid That
Fix My Session is a Hit! Implement It Today to Reduce Support Calls Related to Hung Sessions and Locked Profile Disks
Remote Desktop Commander v8 Upgrade Links
New Client-Side Endpoint Diagnostics in Remote Desktop Commander Suite v8
Simple Installation of Client-Side Diagnostics on Endpoints
In order for Remote Desktop Commander’s DEX dashboard to display the new client-side metrics in v8 of the Remote Desktop Commander Suite, you must first take 2 steps:
- Deploy the Client Side Diagnostic Agent components on each of your session hosts, and
- Create a RDPSoft Client Side Diagnostics micro-installer executable, that an end user runs on their PC with a single click, or that is pushed out via Intune, etc.
Fortunately, we’ve engineered this process to be as easy as possible – it takes no more than a few minutes to setup. To review the process, please consult our newly published Remote Desktop Commander Suite v8 Client Side Diagnostics – How To Guide.
The New, Expanded DEX Dashboard
Once a user has installed the new Client Side Diagnostics on their PC, you can review them easily in real time in the new DEX dashboard. Simply raise the DEX dashboard as before, by selecting the user’s session in the Remote Desktop Commander Session Navigator. You should now see the Client Side Metrics in plain view at the bottom of the window.
Beyond the basic metrics such as WiFi strength and client CPU and memory load, an administrator can quickly dive more deeply into other metrics that our Client-Side Diagnostics components send across the RDP session and up to the session host. For example, an administrator can choose the “View Advanced Performance Stats” to see which programs a user has launched on their client endpoint that are using lots of CPU, memory, or disk and network I/O. If these metrics are high, they might degrade the user’s remote desktop or the remote application experience being delivered over RDS or AVD.
However, that’s just the beginning of the troubleshooting capabilities. While Remote Desktop Commander has been able to display basic latency and packet loss metrics measurable via server-side performance counters for years, the Client-Side Diagnostics components have the capability to collect full differential traceroutes, such as between a reference Internet address and the address of your RDS or AVD deployment’s gateway or VPN server. Metrics like jitter and ISP geolocation of servers in the route to your edge device can be automatically gathered and displayed for rapid review. The real global source IP of the client is also collected and geolocated.
Remember the Client Side Connection Analyzer we introduced a few years ago in the Remote Desktop Commander Suite? With it, you directed an end user to run the program on their Windows endpoint, and then had them email you a file that you could analyze in the Remote Desktop Commander Client to see the reasons for their disconnects- whether they were out of date on their Windows updates or had any weird settings they were using for their RDP client.
Apparently, running that tool and actually emailing the file back to a technician was too difficult for some end users (bless their hearts), so you’ll be pleased to know that a new version of the tool is included in the RDPSoft Client Side Diagnostics installer, that will automatically build and transfer the file when requested by an Administrator. The user doesn’t have to lift a finger! When summoned, an Administrator can quickly review the Client-Side Connection Analyzer metrics which load spontaneously in a separate window.
Watch the New V8 DEX Dashboard In Action
Store More RDS and AVD Metrics for Free! Remote Desktop Commander v8 Now Ships With SQL Express 2025 and a 50 GB Size Limit!
For the longest time, small and medium sized organizations who wish to use our solution have had a choice to make – do they install Remote Desktop Commander Suite with its native SQL Server Express database, and significantly restrict what metrics they capture and how long they retain those metrics? Or, do they instead license a full version of SQL Server or stand up an instance of Azure SQL (both of which add to the total monitoring cost)?
We’re pleased to report that Microsoft finally caught up with the times and decided to increase SQL Express’ hard-coded database size limit from 10GBs to 50GBs in SQL Express 2025. This makes a huge difference in the types of data and the days of data that Remote Desktop Commander Suite can store, and it provides a perfect solution for mid-size RDS or AVD deployments that have up to 10 or 15 hosts. We now package SQL Express 2025 with Remote Desktop Commander v8- so as long as you install Remote Desktop Commander v8 on Windows Server 2019 or later, or in the case of AVD, on Windows 10 or 11 multi-session host, you can utilize this new version with extended storage.
That said, because SQL Express can be finicky with upgrades, if you already utilize SQL Express with a previous version of Remote Desktop Commander and want more storage, we recommend that you perform a brand new installation of our software instead, and then reconfigure your monitoring (and freshly deploy agents, etc) to match the extra capacity.
For those of you running Azure Virtual Desktop and struggling with Azure Monitor and Azure Log Analytics costs, being able to leverage SQL Express for free with our software can drop your monitoring costs significantly, and will often pay for more monitoring and management capabilities from us than provided by Microsoft- especially if you switch to our Complete Monitoring and Management Bundle for EUC. Also, if your organization is larger and has more than 10 or 15 AVD hosts, request a demo of our solutions and talk to us – our sales team has promotional discounts that can help defray your costs of a SQL Standard implementation or Azure SQL implementation so you can make the switch to our solutions.
Were You Bit By the April Security Update for Windows 11 That Generates Scare Screens for End Users, and Disables Client Resources Like the Clipboard/Printers By Default? You’re Not Alone – and Here’s How To Fix It.
Our CEO, Andy Milford, takes Microsoft to task for their latest screw up with the Windows 11 April Security Update, and provides you with free utilities and mitigation strategies to help you get your RDS deployment back on track. Head over to his PureRDS.org blog for the full scoop and how to appropriately fix things.
New Price Changes for the Remote Desktop Commander Suite and Legacy Complete Monitoring and Management Bundle Coming Next Month – Review Your Options and Request an Account Review
At RDPSoft, we consistently strive to provide you with tremendous value- and we do that by setting price points that are some of the lowest in the industry for the feature sets we deliver. We also don’t believe in hefty price hikes every single year, whether we deliver new features or not. On average, our price increases occur once every two years, *after* we have brought new feature sets and new products to market to justify those increases. True enough, our last price increase was back in early 2024.
Starting in May 2026, we will begin implementing an approximate 15% price increase for monthly and annual subscribers of the Remote Desktop Commander Suite, as well as subscribers of our Legacy Complete Monitoring and Management Bundle (e.g. the previous bundle that does not include our new Fix My Session product). This directly correlates to the new features we have added to the Remote Desktop Commander Suite over the past two and half years, especially the newest features related to user experience troubleshooting (DEX) and client endpoint monitoring. Other solutions in the market focused on DEX and/or client endpoint monitoring often sell for many multiples of what our tools cost, and most of those companies do not provide monthly subscription options either.
That said, whenever we have pricing changes, we always encourage our customers to connect with us and request an account review, as you have options that may suit your needs and budget better. For instance, switching from a monthly to an annual subscription can reduce your costs. Or, uplifting to our new EUC Monitoring and Management Bundle to gain access to our newest Fix My Session product can reduce your costs associated with manually trying to fix hung user sessions and locked profiles.
Are You Still Giving Your Users Admin Rights on RDS or AVD Hosts Required By Legacy Apps? Let’s Fix That and Secure Your EUC Deployment at the Same Time.
Let’s face it – some legacy apps were written expecting – nay, demanding -admin rights on a local system. Back when users would run those apps on individual PCs that might have been workable, but having to grant admin rights on a shared RDS or AVD session host is a risky gamble – and not a secure proposition. If you don’t understand why giving users local admin rights on an EUC host is a bad idea, read our CEO Andy Milford’s RDPwned book (available at Amazon) that discusses privilege escalation and lateral movement. If you grant users local Administrator rights on your EUC hosts and then log into these hosts with Domain Admin credentials, a local Administrator can:
- Steal your Domain Admin credentials;
- Take over your session;
- Engage in Pass the Hash or Pass the Ticket attacks;
- Eventually take over your entire Windows domain.
While to date a few companies (e.g. Ivanti, BeyondTrust, and Tricerat) have tried to tackle this problem, their packages are often much more robust and costly than what a SMB, MSP, or even early enterprise company wants to budget for a specific security need. Imagine our pleasure when we learned that a new solution to this problem had been developed by a team with veteran experience in the EUC market – yet had been priced affordably for SMBs and MSPs.
This new solution solves the legacy app issue by selectively elevating only specific applications when they are launched by the user. As a result, the apps get the rights they need, but a potential attacker does not have broad local Admin rights in their session, which they could abuse to do all of the nefarious things I mentioned above.
We’re so impressed with this product that we’ve agreed to introduce it to our customer base via deal registrations – so, if you have legacy apps requiring local Admin rights without a secure approach yet in place or, if you’re already using a costly solution to tackle this problem but need to reduce your IT spend, please fill out the form that I’ve linked to here. We will introduce you to this new solution and the founders behind it, and also provide you with a 10% off coupon, should you decide to purchase after trialing it your environment.
Stop Dealing With Locked Profile Disks and Hung Sessions Manually. Deploy Fix My Session Today and Reclaim Your Time!
Ever since we released our brand new Fix My Session product late last year, customer response has been amazing. Many of our customers are upgrading their subscriptions to our new five product EUC bundle which includes this tool. Others, especially MSPs, are implementing it as a standalone product to cut down on customer support calls from users running RDS and AVD.
If you are running FSLogix in your RDS or AVD environments, or even legacy User Profile Disks (e.g. UPDs) in RDS, Fix My Session is a no-brainer insurance policy for when application updates, Windows updates, or FSLogix updates start locking profiles. But, even if you’re one of the lucky few organizations that do not use profile disks (e.g. everything is done in a local profile), empowering your users to rescue their own sessions when black screens occur or sessions freeze is also essential. In the new world of AI, IT teams are being pressured to do more with fewer staff. If you can remove the support calls related to locked profiles or hung sessions, our Fix My Session tool quickly pays for itself, and then starts saving you money.
Interested? Watch the demo videos here, and then reach out to our sales team to schedule a live demo. Are you an existing legacy Complete Monitoring and Management Bundle customer who now wants to add Fix My Session? Reach out to us via our sales contact form and let us know you’d like to add it. We’ll contact you to process a true up order and then convert your subscription over to our new five product EUC bundle.
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