Remote Desktop Services Reviews & Insights

At my job, I need to manage several physical computers, which also hosts multiple virtual machines. I don't need to access them remotely at all times. And the times that I need to login remotely, I use a VPN connection. So having them with Remote Desktop Services enabled, helps me to access them from the office to perform routinary Windows and drivers and third party programs updates.

- When you need to manage physical workstations within the local network (LAN) running Windows.

- When managing virtual machines created by Microsoft Hyper-V.

- When you manage that end-users do not use on a regular basis like file and applications servers running Windows 10/11.

- When a cost-effective approach is needed.

We utilize Remote Desktop Services for all of our off-site remote access to our company server for daily work functions. This allows us to perform our necessary work, use our own personal computers or computers that don’t function with programs that are MS based, and do so from remote locations all over the country. We have had issues with some log-outs not happening therefore not allowing individuals to log back in, and when internet connectivity is down at our host location not to be able to connect.

Remote Desktop is well suited for smaller office bases where individuals need to access shared files or programs without having it installed in personal machines. In a small server setting with local access only this works to bridge the gap. It allows users to remote in to access files shared on a single server or remote machine. Not suited for individuals without an IT consultant as there are set up and maintenance issues that require knowledge and time. Also some down time.

We utilize it mostly for a company wide program that is installed on a dedicated server. Everyone remotes into the server and utilizes the program from this server. Also, we have a document management system that is housed on this server that is utilized as a company wide program.

RDS works best of all remote systems I've used. The biggest feature for end users is it looks and feels just like they are using their own computer, whereas some remote systems don't have the same ability for shortcuts, etc... like RDS has in it's arsenal.

Remote Desktop Services is a handy feature in Windows OS like Windows Server, Windows 7, etc. It is being used in our organization to connect to our server and local PCs. The main problem it addresses is to let a user/administrator take remote of another PC/server to perform various works like configuration, troubleshooting, etc.

Remote Desktop services are well suited for people looking to connect to Local computers/Servers after connecting to VPN or Local Area Network. It is easy to use and performs superbly without any issues. However, it does not have support for connecting to Non-Windows-based Devices and Applications like Teamviewer beat RDP when it comes to connecting to machines outside one's network.

We have used it for years to allow our Sales Team to get access back to our main office network. This was much more versatile, secure, and faster than using a VPN to access files and programs directly. When Covid hit we were able to have users work from home and simply remote into their workstations at their desks and work as usual. With that said we are using the Remote Desktop Gateway as well for security. I recently looked into using Citrix but the capabilities were the same but the cost was much higher.

Great for working away from the office or for users that work from home. Might be less appropriate for users or road worriers in bad internet locations. This is where cloud apps might work better.

My organization uses Windows Remote Desktop Services in several ways:

• Admin remote access to physical servers.
• Admin access to cloud-hosted servers.
• User access to a single desktop from multiple devices. This allows users to connect from any computer across many sites to a single desktop. With this, a physical computer becomes a workstation that is simply displaying content from a remote server.
• User access to published RemoteApp programs. This allows users to open a program on their device, which is actually hosted on a remote server.

Remote Desktop Services is great for some uses, like remote access to servers for admins. For end-users, setup is complicated and costly, but the end solution is great for shared device environments or mobile users. Allowing a user to see the same desktop from any device, on-site or off-site, provides a smooth experience for them. User management is effective once configured.

Remote Desktop Services is being used by many different departments, between direct desktop access or access to a remote terminal server.
Remote Desktop Services addresses software that does not tolerate being run over a WAN connection. Some of the Vendors we use for software requires direct contact to SQL, so we secure that and only allow local access.

Remote desktop works well in our environment when people in other offices need to connect to isolated systems.

We use Remote Desktop Services to access servers ourselves, provide remote support to users across campus, provide access to servers for end-users, and provide access to RemoteApps for users. For going from Windows to Windows on a local network, this is by far the best solution for remote access that we have found.

Microsoft's Remote Desktop Services is particularly nice if you have a server license for a program and don't want to install it on everyone's machine but do want to give everyone access to the program. They can either use RDS to connect to the server, or you can set up a RemoteApp.

It's also nice if you have people who work on two different workstations in two different locations. We have several people who sometimes work at one desk and sometimes in an office, so it's nice for them to be able to access one machine or the other easily without having to walk back and forth.

One note, if users don't have an Active Directory account, or if you don't want to mess with putting people into various permissions groups, RDS may not be the best solution for them. This wasn't an issue for us since our organization was small enough that we could manage AD permissions and groups rather easily.

It is currently being used by Information Technology to access both internal and cloud systems.

Remote Desktop Services is great for a non-critial role. We use it for support on desktop and servers, however, we do not use it as a primary for servers. There can be issues with restarts and when you need to see POST/BIOS.

Remote Desktop Services is being used by our entire organization. It solves the purpose of connecting to production systems through our local desktop. I also connect to my PC at the office from my home if I have to login from home. I connect to production systems using Remote Desktop to start, stop and deploy applications on the production system. It works seamlessly.

Remote Desktop Services is especially good to access files and run programs remotely on the destination machine. It is Less effective if playing videos or accessing graphic content remotely.