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Introducing pen remoting for Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016
Published Sep 08 2018 07:10 AM 17.3K Views
First published on CloudBlogs on Jul 22, 2015

My name is David Bélanger, and I work in the Remote Desktop team. As we get closer to the release of Windows 10 and the next technical preview of Windows Server 2016, I want to bring attention to the new pen remoting feature available in the Remote Desktop Connection client (mstsc.exe) when connecting from a Windows 10 (or Windows Server 2016) client to a host system running Windows 10 (or Windows Server 2016). Any references below to Windows 10 refer to both Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016.

Using a pen in a Remote Desktop session

With the growing number of devices like the Surface Pro 3 which provide a great pen experience whether you are a student taking notes in OneNote during class or an artist painting in Fresh Paint, we wanted to ensure you get the same functionality when connecting to a remote PC.

While you were able to use a pen to interact with your Remote Desktop session in Windows 8.1, our goal was to enhance it to the next level to provide you a local like experience.

In Windows 10, the pen is now a first class input method, at the same level as your mouse, keyboard and touch. This means you get the same great experience using it with applications in a Remote Desktop session as you do with local apps. What’s even better is that there is no special configuration needed. If your device supports pen locally and it is running Windows 10, simply connect remotely to a PC also running Windows 10 and you can write or draw in the session.

Depending on which pen you use, there are many properties available that applications can use to tailor the experience, all of these will be available in the session.

An example of this is pressure. Some screens can detect how hard you are pressing on the screen and apps can change the thickness of a line based on that data.

Figure 1: Changing the line thickness with the pen pressure.

Other examples are whether the pen is inverted or not, if the barrel button is pressed or even the angle and orientation at which you are holding the pen.

Give it a try

This feature is already available in the Windows Insider builds available for testing so there is no need to wait until July 29 th if you want to give it a try. Pen remoting is currently only available in the Remote Desktop Connection client for Windows Desktop when connecting from a Windows 10 device to a Windows 10 host.

Have any key capabilities you would love to see in our RD clients? Enter your idea or vote at our Feature Request site.

Note: Questions and comments are welcome. However, please DO NOT post a request for troubleshooting by using the comment tool at the end of this post. Instead, post a new thread in the Remote Desktop clients forum . Thank you!

4 Comments
Copper Contributor

Extremely important and wanted feature. I would love it though if this feature can come to Remote desktop for iOS or Android and then hopefully i will be able to use, penabled Android and iOS tablets to handwrite in my desktop via internet. There are no good penabled tabletpcs available in India, But iPadpro not only has excellent office 365 apps but also a much better stylus than the Surface Pro4 i own. I absolutely love the windows 10 and onenote 2016 but the pen digitizer layer has broken after an accident it suffered.

 

I highly praise this intuitive direction in which remote desktop team has decided to take pen computing. Cloud gaming has developed so exponentially, i was wondering if nobody was thinking about cloud academics - but you guys were. And that's what makes you guys great. Your hard work will definitely not go unappreciated by thousands of users who depend on your intuitive software.

 

 

Copper Contributor

Hello great upgrade I love it. But I've been trying with Zbrush which is a digital sculpting software but the pen pressure doesn't work in remote session. I've already asked for a solution but no replys to my messages or threads. I would die to get the pen pressure to work on Zbrush. Many thanks for your time and help. Please I need help with this.

Copper Contributor

Pixologic added Windows Ink support last month. You can thank Covid-19 for that!

Copper Contributor

Hello, @MicrosoftSecurityandComplianceTeam 

This is a great feature.

Thanks for your efforts.

 

I'm very interested in the RDP and the relevant technology.
So, I have one question.

What is (are) the RDP specification(s) for the pen remoting feature?
That's, I'd like to know the title of the main RDP specifications used to implement this feature.

For example:
[MS-RDPEGDI]: Remote Desktop Protocol: Graphics Device Interface (GDI) Acceleration Extensions
[MS-RDPEI]: Remote Desktop Protocol: Input Virtual Channel Extension

 

Thanks.

 

 

Version history
Last update:
‎Sep 08 2018 07:10 AM