Hi,

I am struggling with a strange issue. In an RDS 2012 R2 VDI setup I am unable to shadow Windows 7 VDI computers.

The Windows 7 VDI computers are all updated with the lates Microsoft Updates including the RDP 8.x updates.

When I try to shadow a user from with in the Server Manager I get an "access denied" error message. I have created a Remote Assistance GPO which enables the Domain Admins Group to perform unsolicited remote assistance. The same GPO configures the Windows Firewall to allow Remote Assistance.

I know this GPO works, because I have no issues shadowing my WIndows 8.1 VDI computers

During my research I have found these registry values:

AllowRemoteRPC

fServerEnableRDP8

Both are set to 1 (Enabled)

When I set these registry values I get another error massage when I am trying to shadow that says "The version of Windows running on this server does not support user shadowing" which is not true since I can shadow my WIndows 8.1 VDI computers :)

Is shadowing Windows 7 VDI computers not supported in RDS 2012 R2 or am I missing something?

• Edited by Kasper Johansen Friday, March 20, 2015 11:56 AM

Hi Kasper,

Agree with words of TP, there is no functionality of shadow session with RDP 8.0 but seems you can upgrade to RDP 8.1 and can use that functionality. Please check below line and document for information.
Support for session shadowing
Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 let administrators use the session-shadowing feature on a session-based or virtual machine-based desktop or on a RemoteApp application. This is very useful for the support and troubleshooting of an end-user problem. By using RDC 8.1, administrators can now use the session-shadowing feature from the command line on Windows 7 SP1-based computers.

Update for RemoteApp and Desktop Connections feature is available for Windows
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2830477

Hope it helps!

Thanks.