Installing Remote Desktop HTML5 Web Client on Windows Server RDS

On Windows Server 2022/2019/2016 with Remote Desktop Services deployed, you can install and configure the new HTML5-based Remote Desktop Web Client. This web client will allow any device (iOS, macOS, Android, Linux) to access your RemoteApps on RDS hosts directly from any browser (no need to install an additional RDP client).

Remote Desktop Web Client is available as an RD Web Access role feature on RDS servers running Windows Server 2022/2019/2016.

Before deploying the RD Web Client, you need to make sure that your RDS infrastructure meets the following requirements:

• A deployed RDS farm infrastructure, including Remote Desktop Gateway, RD Connection Broker, and RD Web Access on Windows Server 2022/2019/2016;
• Per User terminal licenses (RDS CAL) are used;
• RDS Gateway and Web Access servers must use SSL certificates issued by a trusted CA. You can use free Let’s Encrypt certificates on RDS or Self-signed SSL certificates (only in limited mode).

Installing RD Web HTML5 Client on Windows Server RDS

HTML5 RD Web Client is not included in the Windows Server distribution. You need to manually install the RD Web Client Management module from the PowerShell Script Gallery.

Install the PowerShellGet module on a server with the RD Web Access role:

Install-Module -Name PowerShellGet -Force

Restart the PowerShell.exe console and install the RD Web Client Management module:

Install-Module -Name RDWebClientManagement

To accept the terms of the Microsoft Licence Agreement, press A.

Then install the latest version of the Web Remote Desktop package:

Install-RDWebClientPackage

After the RDWebClientPackage package is installed, check its properties with the following command:

Get-RDWebClientPackage

As you can see, there appeared rd-html 5.0 package version 1.0.0.

Next, you need to export the SSL certificate from the server with the RDS Connection Broker role used for SSO (Enable Single Sign On) to a .cer file (BASE64 format).

1. Open the computer certificate management console certlm.msc;
2. Expand the section Personal -> Certificates;
3. Find your certificate that is used in your RDS farm, right-click on it, and choose select All Tasks -> Export;
4. Select the Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER) export format and specify a file name.

Import the certificate to the RD Web Access server:

Import-RDWebClientBrokerCert C:\RDBrokerCert.cer

Now you can publish the RD Web Client:

Publish-RDWebClientPackage -Type Production -Latest

Connecting to the RDWeb Access Server with Web (HTML5) Client

After you have deployed the Web Client package on the RDS server, you can use a browser on a client computer to access RemoteApps and desktops. All the latest versions of Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Safari, and Mozilla Firefox are supported. In order to access RDS servers from a browser, just share the URL link to your RDWeb server with your users.

Open the URL address:

https://RDWebFQDN.server.name/RDWeb/webclient/index.html

To access the test environment, use this URL address:

https://RDWebFQDN.server.name/RDWeb/WebClient-Test/index.html

The server name must match the RD Web Access server name in the SSL certificate.

Sign in to the RDWeb server using your credentials.

During sign-in, you will be prompted about what local resources should be available in your RD session. Only clipboard and printer redirection are available. Currently, the local drives and any USB devices cannot be redirected through the HTML5 RDP client. Instead, use the mstsc.exe client, RDCMan, or analog.

After a successful sign-in, you will see all RemoteApps published in the RD collection. You can switch between them using the icons at the top of the window.

When you run the RemoteApp, it will be displayed in the browser with the option to expand the window to full screen.

You can print from the Remote Desktop Web Client using the PDF Virtual Printer (Microsoft Print to PDF). Then you print something in the RD Web Client window, your browser prompts you to download a PDF file. You can open this PDF (using the built-in Edge PDF viewer or a third-party app) and print it to a local printer.

The dynamic changing of the RD window size and full-screen mode are available in the HTML5 RD web client. You can copy only text via the clipboard to your Remote Desktop session (but not files or graphics).

Common RD Web Client Errors

When you sign in to RD Web Access through the web client, you see a list of published Remote Apps, but when you try to launch any of them, you get an error:

Oops, we could not connect to Calculator. The connection to the remote PC was lost. This might be because of a network connection problem. If this keeps happening, ask your administrator or tech support for help.

There may also be an error:

The web client needs a Remote Desktop Gateway to connect to desktops and apps.

These errors occur if you have deployed an RDS farm without an RD Web Gateway. If you only have RD Connection Broker deployed, you need to bind your RDS certificate to port 3392 (see description in section Connecting to RD Broker without RD Gateway in Windows Server 2019 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/clients/remote-desktop-web-client-admin).

Error:

Your session ended because an unexpected server authentication certificate was received from the remote PC. Ask your admin or tech support for help.

Check that your RD certificate is correct (the FQDN of the server with RD web client must be contained in the certificate). Verify that this certificate is assigned to all roles in your RDS deployment. Separately, check that this certificate is set in the RDGW server settings (SSL Certificates tab). If possible, use a wildcard certificate.