First published on CloudBlogs on Mar 30, 2017 by Enterprise Mobility + Security Team
This post is authored by David Belanger, Senior Program Manager and Eva Seydl, Program Manger. We, the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Team, have a number of updates on the Remote Desktop apps for Windows, Android, iOS and Mac to share with you. This blog highlights the latest feature additions and improvements. Follow these links if you would like to try out the improvements on your device right away:
You can find a comparison of different capabilities between the different apps on TechNet .
New functionality in the Windows 10 Universal app
Here are the new features recently added to the Windows 10 app.
Be more productive with multiple concurrent sessions
You now have the ability to connect and interact with multiple remote PCs simultaneously and easily navigate between them using the in-session menus. Active connections are highlighted on the Connection Center and can be disconnected from the connection menu.
Figure 1: Switching sessions
Tailor the session to your needs
You can now choose the session resolution and scaling factor for each connection allowing you to use applications with specific requirements or to keep the native resolution of the remote PC. Note: The scaling factor only takes effect on new connections and not when reconnecting to an existing session and it only applies to connections to Windows 8.1 or above.
Greatly improved windowed mode experience
We’ve made it a lot easier to use the Remote Desktop app in windowed mode instead of full screen so you can easily keep track of local and remote applications and easily move the session around between monitors. You can:
- Choose to start sessions in full screen or not from the global settings.
- Select the behavior when resizing the app window from the global settings.
- Allow the remote resolution to be dynamically updated from the connection settings for connections to Windows 8.1 or above.
Manage all your connections with custom groups
Some of you have a lot of connections and it can quickly become overwhelming with all of them simply listed alphabetically. You now have the ability to create your own groups and assign connections to them to tidy up the Connection Center.
Figure 2: Groups on the Connection Center
Improvements to our preview for macOS
Our latest improvements to the app focus on multimonitor set-ups to align with the behavior you are familiar with from our full featured app. Apart from that, the app has a lighter look and feel as we removed the accent color on the Connection Center window.
Easily find and launch your remote apps or desktops on iOS
For our users on iOS 10 we have Spotlight search. Once you have saved the connection to your remote PC or any published apps and desktops in the app launch that connection directly from the OS search. No need to launch the remote desktop application first.
In-session improvements on our app on Android
One of the most requested features on Android which has surfaced in our UserVoice forum is the need for portrait mode. We have answered this ask by enabling the remote desktop session dynamically follow your device orientation. Users connecting to Windows 8.1 or later benefit from dynamic display resolution and have the best experience. On rotation, the screen resolution adapts dynamically to your screen.
Figure 3: In-session dynamic orientation on Windows 10
For users connecting to Windows 8 or below, on rotation the remote desktop session is letterboxed as those operating systems do not benefit from the latest RDP protocol improvements. We recommend that you rotate your device to the preferred orientation before launching a session. Optionally set the preferred orientation mode for remote desktop sessions in the app settings (Go to Settings > Display).
Another improvement addresses the keyboard extension which contains all additional keys that you might need when navigating through Windows. You can scroll this extension by dragging left or right to reach all the keys you need or to switch to the numpad.
Figure 4: Keyboard extension in portrait mode
How to provide feature suggestions?
To provide feedback on the Windows 10 app, open the Feedback Hub and submit feedback for the Apps and Games category and the Remote Desktop subcategory. To provide feedback for the apps on other platforms, post your idea in UserVoice after selecting the appropriate forum on the right side.
How to get help?
You can also post your issues on our TechNet forum to get help from the RDS community.
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