Remote Desktop Services in Windows 2012 R2, Requires RD Web Access?

Hello and Good Day Community...

My organization is looking at Windows 2012 R2 for Remote Desktop Session host. Our production environments currently run Windows 2008 R2. 

In setting up a new Windows 2012 R2 Remote Desktop Host, I am doing a standard deployment. I am noticing when going thru the wizard, I am asked to specify a connection broker server. This looks to be required now when setting up Windows 2012 R2 Remote Desktop Services. I understand that. But it is also asking me to specify a RD Web Access server. I don't seem to have an option for going past that part of the wizard, it looks like it wants you to specify one before continuing. 

I ask this question because we do not use RD Web Access in out Remote Desktop farms. Is this now required in a standard deployment, even if you don't use RD Web Access? If so, why is it required? Does the RD Web Access role now have additional responsibilities that now make it mandatory?

Thanks for any insight you can provide...

-Harold

July 29th, 2015 3:31pm

Hi Harold,

In Server 2012+, RD Web Access is the only supported way to generate and distribute RDP files to your end users. I'm guessing currently you are using the 2008 R2 Admin UI to generate MSI files and send those to your end-users? Unfortunately support for MSI generation was dropped in Server 2012. The recommended replacement is the "RemoteApp and Desktop Connections" feature, which was first introduced in Server 2008 R2. It allows you to push a set of RDP files to your end users' PCs, install links to those RDP files in the start menu as shortcuts, and (as an improvement over installing via MSI) keep them up-to-date as you make changes to the list of published apps (e.g. unpublishing an app, or changing the RDP file contents). You can learn more in the following blog posts:

Hope that helps,

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July 29th, 2015 7:58pm

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