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Run 32-bit Remote Desktop (RDP) on Windows 64-bit

  • Article
  •  Create a .bat file with the following three lines:

@echo off

set WinDir=

start C:\Windows\SysWow64\mstsc.exe

 

  • The environment variable WinDir will only be deleted locally and temporarily, for the session that starts mstsc.exe and not for the entire system.
  • This prevents the 32-bit version from finding the 64-bit version and starting it, which is what would happen otherwise.

RemoteApps

  • To use the 32-bit version of mstsc.exe with TS RemoteApps, do the following:
  1. Backup the original file:
    C:\windows\system32\mstsc.exe
  2. Replace it with:
    C:\Windows\SysWow64\mstsc.exe

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 14, 2013
    This works fine for remote desktop connections but does not seem to work for RemoteApp - the 64bit mstsc.exe is loaded regardless. I renamed to the 64bit mstsc.exe as per this blog that you commented on (www.davidmoore.info/.../running-32-bit-remote-desktop-connection-on-windows-64-bit) and in that case RemoteApp fails to make a connection at all with an error saying "Your computer was unable to connect to the remote computer". This makes me think that the 32bit version of mstsc does not support RemoteApp for some reason. Do you know of a way to make a RemoteApp connection using 32bit mstsc.exe?

  • Anonymous
    May 08, 2013
    I found I could get it to work if I used RemoteApp Manager to create an rdp file and manually edited the file to turn off the 'remoteapplicationmode' setting. (This is not feasible if you need to digitally sign the rdp file though)