Microsoft Virtualization Secrets

Utilizing the Capabilities of Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)

When RDP 7 was introduced in Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2, a Remote Desktop Client that supported RDP 7 was also made available for Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Initially, RDP only needed to handle the sending of changes to the display as bitmap updates and passing the keyboard and mouse input. Considering the variety of current use cases and the reality that a remote desktop could be a user’s primary workspace, RDP has had to evolve to offer a lot more. As RDP has evolved, so too has the built-in Remote Desktop Client (RDC) that provides the remote connections over RDP; and as enhancements to RDP are made, the RDC is updated to take advantage of the new capabilities. Often the RDC is updated for the version of Windows that offers the new RDP features, but sometimes a new version of the RDC is created for older versions of the operating system, enabling these systems to connect to newer operating systems and take advantage of new features.

Up to 64,000 separate virtual channels are available for an RDP connection! The new RemoteFX technology takes advantage of RDP virtual channels to offer its functionality.

Because RDP supports a number of virtual channels, different types of traffic and use scenarios can be enabled, including third parties that want to create additional capabilities on top of RDP. Windows 8 currently supports version 8 of RDP as both client and server. To verify the RDP version supported by your ...