RemoteFX Features Available to Clients

Learn what features RemoteFX offers.

John Savill

January 9, 2013

1 Min Read
RemoteFX Features Available to Clients

Q: What RemoteFX features are available to clients depending on their version and the computer being connected to?

A: Originally introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for VDI environments, RemoteFX introduced the ability to virtualize a GPU in a server, enabling server-side graphical rendering in addition to a new graphical codec and port-level USB redirection.

In Windows Server 2012, RemoteFX has become more widespread, including Session Virtualization solutions and in this MSDN blog post Microsoft lay out the features that are available based on client and server versions. It's a very interesting article and worth a read. Key points are as follows:

  • All RemoteFX features are supported at the client for all versions of Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows 2012. Windows 7 (with RDP 8.0 update) supports all features except for RemoteFX Multi-touch, email discovery of RemoteApp, and the Metro RDP client.

  • USB port redirection, multi-media redirection, microphone redirection, and user profile disk are only available on Windows Server 2012 when the Remote Desktop Session Host role is enabled.

  • For the full RemoteFX set of features when connecting to a Windows 8 OS (such as in a VDI deployment), you need to run Windows 8 Enterprise in the target OS.

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