Applies to: Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2

In a previous article, we went through the steps of deploying a 2012 / 2012R2 Remote Desktop Services (RDS) farm. Now with the farm built, let’s take a look at the changes and the process of publishing RemoteApp programs and session-based desktops in Server 2012 / 2012 R2.

Let’s open Server Manager and look at our farm. On the left column you will see a new node called Collections. Collections give you the ability to group a set of RD Session Host servers with a common set of applications and publish them to users. These can be RemoteApp programs or Session Host and VDI desktops. So think of collections as something similar to an application silo. For instance, let’s say we had a group of 5 RD session host servers which all have Office 2013 installed and are configured the same way. If we wanted to publish the Office applications across the 5 RD session host servers, we would first create a collection that included all 5 servers and publish the Office apps accordingly. This is the same if you wanted to provide users with a session host desktop. You would simply create a new collection, add the servers which will be providing the session desktop and publish them to the proper user group(s). One thing to note is you cannot publish a desktop to an existing collection which has already been configured for RemoteApps. The published desktop will require its own collection. Read the rest of this entry »