Forum Discussion
Screen artifacts, lines, and blurry text when connecting from macOS Microsoft Remote Desktop clients
We're having many users reporting that they're seeing screen artifacts, lines, and blurry fonts in their Windows applications. The issue appeared to have started recently, around the June 4, 2024. It seems to coincide with the latest update pushed by Microsoft, Remote Desktop Services SxS Network Stack:
This issue is occurring on Windows 10 and Windows 11 Azure Virtual Desktop machines and Windows 365 (Cloud PC), running Windows 10 and Windows 11 as well.
Users are also running Microsoft Remote Desktop version 10.9.7. Issue also occurred on users that were still running version 10.9.6.
There are several other folks in the Azure Virtual Desktop feedback forum reporting similar issues:
Vertical Lines appear for Azure Virtuals - Microsoft Community Hub
microsoft remote desktop macos graphic issue - Microsoft Community Hub
Microsoft, please get on this. I've opened a ticket in the Azure Help + Support interface.
Latest from Microsoft support:
"This is a known issue and there is an IcM ticket for it.""Additionally, please try the following steps on the session host..." "
This solution was suggested by a colleague who successfully resolved this issue for another customer.- Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Remote Session Environment.
- Select the policy Use hardware graphics adapters for all Remote Desktop Services sessions. Set this policy to Enabled to enable GPU rendering in the remote session.
Select the policy Configure H.264/AVC hardware encoding for Remote Desktop connections. Set this policy to Enabled to enable hardware encoding for AVC/H.264 in the remote session.
- Select the policy Prioritize H.264/AVC 444 Graphics mode for Remote Desktop connections. Set this policy to Enabled to force the H.264/AVC 444 codec in the remote session."
Launch gpedit.msc in order to configure the above on the host Windows instance to test:We've tested changes by pushing to affected Windows instances in Windows 365 (Cloud PC) and Azure Virtual Desktop via Group Policy Object (GPO):
Results seem promising so far from feedback from users
