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Test Lab Guide: Remote Desktop Services Publishing

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Applies To: Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012

Introduction

In Windows Server 2008 R2, publishing and managing applications on both pooled and personal virtual desktops is a very time-consuming and costly process. Because RemoteApp programs only partially integrate with the native Windows experience, they add to the management cost since there’s no way to organize published RemoteApp programs to users.

Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server® 2012 enables you to publish and manage resources, such as RemoteApp programs, session-based desktops, and virtual desktops, from a centralized console. Using this new publishing feature, you get an historic view of resources assigned to end users, you can change published resources for any given collection, and you can edit properties of published resources.

Centralized resource publishing provides end users with an experience that can replace locally installed applications.

In this guide

This paper contains instructions for setting up a test lab based on the Test Lab Guide: Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Standard Deployment and publishing and managing resources using four server computers and one client computer. The resulting centralized resource publishing test lab demonstrates how to successfully install and configure resource publishing.

Important

The following instructions are for configuring the Remote Desktop Services Publishing test lab using the minimum number of computers. Individual computers are needed to separate the services provided on the network and to clearly show the desired functionality. This configuration is neither designed to reflect best practices nor does it reflect a desired or recommended configuration for a production network. The configuration, including IP addresses and all other configuration parameters, is designed only to work on a separate test lab network.

Test lab overview

In this test lab, Remote Desktop Services Publishing is deployed with:

  • One computer running Windows Server 2012 named DC1 that is configured as an intranet domain controller, Domain Name System (DNS) server, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, and an enterprise root certification authority (CA).

  • One intranet member server running Windows Server 2012 named RDSH1 that is configured as the Remote Desktop Session Host (RD Session Host) server.

  • One intranet member server running Windows Server 2012 named RDWA1 that is configured as the Remote Desktop Web Access (RD Web Access) server.

  • One intranet member server running Windows Server 2012 named RDCB1 that is configured as the Remote Desktop Connection Broker (RD Connection Broker) server.

  • One roaming member client computer running Windows 8 named CLIENT1 that is used to connect to the Session Virtualization deployment.

The Remote Desktop Services Publishing test lab consists of 1 subnet (10.0.0.0/24) that simulates an intranet named Corpnet.

Computers are connected to each other by using a Hyper-V virtual switch. See the following figure.

Hardware and software requirements

The following are required components of the test lab:

  • The product disc or files for Windows Server 2012.

  • The product disc or files for Windows 8.

  • A physical computer that meet the minimum hardware requirements for Windows Server 2012.

Steps for configuring the test lab

There are 6 steps to follow when setting up the Remote Desktop Services Publishing test lab based on the Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Standard Deployment.

  • Step 1: Complete the Demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Standard Deployment Test Lab -- The Publishing test lab requires the Demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Standard Deployment test lab as its starting point.

  • Step 2: Publish a RemoteApp Program – RemoteApp programs are published to either a session collection using Server Manager.

  • Step 3: Enable File Type Association on a RemoteApp Program – Enable file type association to assign the file association on the client device to the associated RemoteApp program.

  • Step 4: Configure DNS Feed Lookup for RemoteApp and Desktop Connections – Configure the Remote Desktop Services DNS feed lookup to automatically discover the RemoteApp and Desktop connection URL when users type in their email addresses.

  • Step 5: Test Published RemoteApp Program using RD Web Access -- CLIENT1 is a Windows 8 computer that is used to test that you can successfully connect to the published RemoteApp program.

  • Step 6: Snapshot the configuration -- At the completion of the lab, snapshot the configuration so that you can later return to a working Session Virtualization deployment Test Lab.

Note

You must be logged on as a member of the Domain Admins group or a member of the Administrators group on each computer to complete the tasks described in this guide. If you cannot complete a task while you are logged on with an account that is a member of the Administrators group, try performing the task while you are logged on with an account that is a member of the Domain Admins group.

Step 1: Complete the Demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Standard Deployment Test Lab

This Test Lab Guide uses the Demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Standard Deployment test lab as a starting place. Please complete the steps in Test Lab Guide: Demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Standard Deployment before proceeding with the remainder of the steps in this guide. If you have already completed the steps in the Demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Standard Deployment Test Lab Guide and saved a disk image or a virtual machine snapshot of the Demonstrate Remote Desktop Services Session Virtualization Standard Deployment, then you can restore the Configuration and proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Publish a RemoteApp Program

RemoteApp programs are published to either a session collection or virtual desktop collection using Server Manager. Publishing a RemoteApp program in the Session Virtualization deployment test lab consists of the following procedures:

  • Publish a RemoteApp program

The following sections explain these procedures in detail.

Publish a RemoteApp program

To publish a RemoteApp program

  1. Log on to the RDSH1 server as the CORP\Administrator user account.

  2. Server Manager will start automatically. If it does not automatically start, click Start, type servermanager.exe, and then click Server Manager.

  3. On the left side of the window, click Remote Desktop Services.

  4. Under Collections, click SessionCollection.

  5. In the REMOTEAPP PROGRAMS tile, click Tasks, and then click Publish RemoteApp Programs.

  6. On the Select RemoteApp Programs page, select Calculator and Wordpad, and then click Next.

  7. On the Confirmation page, click Publish.

  8. When the RemoteApp program is published, click Close.

Step 3: Enable File Type Association on a RemoteApp Program

Installing and configuring the server that will be used for RD Web Access in the Session Virtualization deployment test lab consists of the following procedures:

  • Enable the default connection URL using Group Policy

  • Configure the file type association

The following sections explain these procedures in detail.

Enable the default connection URL using Group Policy

To enable the default connection URL using Group Policy

  1. Log on to the domain controller as the CORP\Administrator user account.

  2. On the domain controller, open Group Policy Management. Click Start, type Group Policy Management, and then click Group Policy Management..

  3. Expand Forest: corp.contoso.com, and expand Domains, and then expand corp.contoso.com.

  4. Right-click Default Domain Policy, and then click Edit.

  5. Navigate to User Configuration -> Policies ->Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Remote Desktop Services -> RemoteApp and Desktop Connections.

  6. Double-click Specify Default Connection URL, and then click Enabled.

  7. In the Default Connection URL box, type https://RDWA1.corp.contoso.com/RDWeb.

  8. Click OK.

Configure the File Type Association

To configure the file type association

  1. Log on to the RDSH1 server as the CORP\Administrator user account.

  2. Server Manager will start automatically. If it does not automatically start, click Start, type servermanager.exe, and then click Server Manager.

  3. On the left side of the window, click Remote Desktop Services.

  4. Under Collections, click SessionCollection.

  5. Under the REMOTEAPP PROGAMS heading, right-click WordPad, and then click Edit Properties.

  6. Click File Type Association.

  7. Select the .docx, .odt, and .rtf

  8. Click OK.

Step 4: Configure DNS Feed Lookup for RemoteApp and Desktop Connections

The Remote Desktop Services DNS feed lookup is used to automatically discover the RemoteApp and Desktop connection URL when users type in their email addresses. This is done by creating a DNS TXT record on the DNS server that contains the connection URL. Configure DNS Feed Lookup for RemoteApp and Desktop Connections to enable automatic discovery of the RemoteApp and Desktop connection URL consists of the following procedures:

  • Configure DNS Feed Lookup for RemoteApp and Desktop Connections.

The following sections explain these procedures in detail.

Configure DNS Feed Lookup for RemoteApp and Desktop Connections.

To configure DNS feed lookup for RemoteApp and Desktop Connection

  1. Log on to the domain controller as the CORP\Administrator user account.

  2. On the domain controller, open DNS Manager. Click Start, type DNS, and then click DNS.

  3. Right-click the forward lookup zone where you want to create the TXT record, and then click Other New Records.

  4. Click Text (TXT), and then click Create Record.

  5. In the Record name (use parent domain if left blank) box, type _msradc.

  6. In the Text box, type https://RDWA1.corp.contoso.com/RDWeb/Feed.

  7. Click OK.

Step 5: Test Published RemoteApp Program using RD Web Access

You can ensure the RemoteApp program published successfully by connecting to the WordPad application that was published.

  • Test Published RemoteApp Program using RD Web Access

The following sections explain these procedures in detail.

Test Published RemoteApp Program using RD Web Access

To test published RemoteApp program using RD Web Access

  1. Log on to the CLIENT1 computer as the CORP\Administrator user account.

  2. Open Internet Explorer. To open Internet Explorer, click Start, and then click Internet Explorer.

  3. In the Internet Explorer address bar, type https://RDWA1.corp.contoso.com/RDWeb and then press Enter.

  4. Click Continue to this website (not recommended).

  5. In the Domain/user name box, type CORP\Administrator.

  6. In the Password box, type the password for the CORP\Administrator user account, and then click Sign in.

  7. Click WordPad, and then click Connect.

  8. Verify that the WordPad application appears correctly.

Step 6: Snapshot the Configuration

This completes the Remote Desktop Services Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Quick Start test lab. To save this configuration so that you can quickly return to a working VDI Quick Start configuration from which you can test other Remote Desktop Services modular test lab guides (TLGs), TLG extensions, or for your own experimentation and learning, do the following:

  1. On all physical computers or virtual machines in the test lab, close all windows and then perform a graceful shutdown.

  2. If your lab is based on virtual machines, save a snapshot of each virtual machine and name the snapshots Publish RemoteApp program. If your lab uses physical computers, create disk images to save the Remote Desktop Services Publishing test lab configuration.

Additional Resources