How to publish the RDP on XenApp

This article describes how to publish a custom remote desktop connection on XenApp. The main idea for this article is to allow administrator access to servers from Web Interface or Program Neighborhood Agent to make administration easier.

Prepare *.rdp file with the desired settings for the server.

This file contains configuration information for the remote desktop connection.

• Open Remote Desktop Client. (This can be done on any computer, you only need to create the *.rdp file.) Click on Options, you will see extra configuration options for the current connection. Configure the IP address or host name of the computer you wish to access using the remote desktop. If you want to create only one custom connection for all of your machines, then leave it blank.

Note: Leave the username box blank and Allow me to save credentials unchecked.

• Modify your display settings. Always keep in mind the type of connection the users will have, the higher the graphics resolution, the more the performance of the connection is affected. If you want to force a specific desktop size or color quality, change them here. The settings changes made here are saved in the *.rdp file.

• Modify your Local Resources settings. Configure these settings as you see fit, keep in mind that the users will be using these connections. Configured wrongly, users might have unwanted access to resources on the server. Configure your audio, clipboard, printer, and local drive redirection settings.

• Modify the experience settings. The more options you allow, the more network resources are used for the connection. Select Reconnect if the connection is dropped. This helps users connect from limited or high usage networks.

• Eliminate the security question when user log on to a server that cannot provide or is not configures to provide this type of verification. This is recommended especially for connection to Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP machines. These versions of operating systems do not have the feature to provide this type of verification. Set the value to “Connect and don’t warn me”.

• Go back to the General tab and save the configuration to a *.rdp file.

• You now have a custom remote desktop connection to a server. But there still one more thing that you should configure.
  By default, when a user logs on to a Microsoft Windows 2003 Server they must log on twice, first on the remote client and second inside the connection on the Windows login prompt. This does not occur for Microsoft Windows 2008. This is normal behavior. If you publish the remote desktop with this configuration, the administrator must log on twice to authenticate to the Windows 2003 servers. To resolve this, you can make the connection bypass the first logon prompt.

For the remote desktop connection to bypass the first login prompt, disable Credential support on the connection. Open the *.rdp file with Notepad and at the end of the file, add EnableCredSSPSupport:i:0, and save the file. Add this file to any folder you wish on the XenApp server so it can be accessed when you publish the connection.

Publish the remote desktop connection in XenApp.

Open the Delivery Service Console or Access Management Console, and start publishing a new application. Follow your desired settings for the published remote desktop, except the location. For the location you must locate mstsc.exe and add the location of the *.rdp file as a parameter. This tells remote desktop to make a connection with that configuration.

For more information regarding PowerShell with XenApp, you can download the complete SDK that gives the complete command library to use PowerShell with XenApp and documents how it can be used.

Remote Desktop Protocol settings in Windows Server 2003 and in Windows XP