About the behavior of ALT+TAB during remote desktop in Windows Server 2025 RemoteApp configuration

Question

In a Windows Server 2025 environment, a RemoteApp is configured in a WorkGroup. When specifying a program on the [Environment] tab of [Local Users and Groups (Compmgmt.msc)] and connecting via Remote Desktop, pressing ALT + TAB to switch between running applications does not display the preview screen list; instead, the running applications are switched in order. I want to enable the display of the preview screen list. (In a Windows Server 2022 environment, pressing ALT + TAB did display the preview screen list.)

Answer 1

Hello 貴之 大塚,

In Windows Server 2025, RemoteApp sessions handle keyboard input differently compared to Server 2022. When you publish a program through the Environment tab in compmgmt.msc and connect via RDP, pressing ALT+TAB no longer shows the thumbnail preview list of running applications. Instead, it cycles through them sequentially. This is not a misconfiguration on your side but a change in default behavior in Server 2025.

To restore the preview list, you need to adjust the RDP client configuration. In the Remote Desktop Connection client (mstsc.exe), go to Local Resources > Keyboard and set “Apply Windows key combinations” to “On the remote computer.” If you are using a RemoteApp .rdp file, open it in a text editor and ensure the line keyboardhook:i:2 is present. The value 2 forces all Windows key combinations, including ALT+TAB, to be processed by the remote session rather than the local machine. Once this is set, ALT+TAB inside the RemoteApp session will again display the preview list of windows, just like it did in Server 2022.

I hope you've found something useful here. If it helps you get more insight into the issue, it's appreciated to accept the answer. Should you have more questions, feel free to leave a message. Have a nice day!

Domic Vo.

Answer 2

In a Remote Desktop session, standard Windows shortcuts are remapped. ALT+TAB inside the remote session does not show the thumbnail preview list; instead, it cycles applications in order. To get the thumbnail-style app switching in a Remote Desktop/RemoteApp context, the Remote Desktop–specific shortcuts must be used.

For Remote Desktop sessions, the documented mappings are:

• Local Windows shortcut: ALT+TAB (switch between programs with preview UI)
• Remote Desktop shortcut: ALT+PAGE UP (switches between programs from left to right)
• Remote Desktop shortcut: ALT+PAGE DOWN (switches between programs from right to left)
• Remote Desktop shortcut: ALT+INSERT (cycles through programs in start order)

These Remote Desktop shortcuts provide program switching but do not enable the same thumbnail preview UI as on a local desktop. The behavior described (ALT+TAB only cycling through apps without the preview list) is the expected Remote Desktop behavior according to the Remote Desktop Services shortcut key mapping and cannot be changed to show the local-style ALT+TAB preview list from within the remote session.

On the local Windows 10/11 desktop (outside Remote Desktop), ALT+TAB behavior and whether Edge tabs appear can be configured under Settings > System > Multitasking, but these settings apply to the local desktop, not to how ALT+TAB is handled inside a Remote Desktop/RemoteApp session.

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References:

• Remote Desktop Services Shortcut Keys
• How to Multitask in Windows

Answer 3

Thank you for your response. Even when I set keyboardhook:i:2 in the RDP file, the behavior was the same. I believe that even if the keyboardhook setting sends the Alt+Tab key operation to the RemoteApp session, because it operates on SERVER 2025, the applications in the RemoteApp session switch sequentially in order. I suspect that this is due to the RemoteApp-dedicated shell being designed to operate with AltTabSettings=1 (display icons in a row instead of thumbnails in the preview view, a function removed by Microsoft in Windows 11 24H2). This seems to cause the same behavior as when AltTabSettings=1 is set in Windows 11, where the applications switch in order.