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In this article, I’ll show you how to configure Remote Desktop Services collections in Windows Server 2012 R2.
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RDS collections are groups of RD Session Host servers with a shared set of RemoteApps, session host, or VDI desktops that can be published to users. A collection can contain either remote desktops or RemoteApps, not both at the same time.
Before you start, you’ll need to already have RDS deployed in your environment. For more information on deploying RDS, see Installing Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2012 R2 on the Petri IT Knowledgebase.
An RDS deployment in Windows Server 2012 R2 (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
A RD Session Host servers to a collection (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Note that the server I’m logged into is a member of Server Manager’s Server Pool, and it happens to be the only RD Session Host server in my RDS deployment. To add RD Session Hosts to the collection, they must be members of the Server Pool. For more information on working with Server Manager, see Managing Windows Server 2012 with Server Manager on the Petri IT Knowledgebase.
Roaming profiles are not always an effective solution and in RDS environments can prove even more problematic. Microsoft has gone some way to solve the problem by creating user profile disks in RDS, starting in Windows Server 2012. Each collection can be directed to a file share that stores a virtual disk for each user, and contains application data and settings. The virtual disk is only accessible in the given collection, so if a user is a member of a different collection, they will have different settings and app data.
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In this demo, we’ll configure user profile disks for the collection later so that we don’t have to manually set NTFS file and share permissions.
Configure user profile disks later (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Collection installation progress (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Back in Server Manager on the overview screen for Remote Desktop Services, you should now see your new collection listed under Collections on the left. Before completing the steps below, you need to have a network share created that RDS will use to store user profile disks. For more information on creating shares, see Create a File Share in Windows Server 2012 R2 Using Server Manager on Petri.
When you create the share, accept the default share and NTFS permissions. If the share is on the same device as the RD Connection Broker, the necessary permissions will be added to the share in the steps below. If the share is located on another server, make sure that the RD Connection Broker has full access to the share and NTFS full control permissions on the folder.
The new collection in Server Manager (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Configure user profile disks in Server Manager (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
In this article, I showed you how to set up a collection in Remote Desktop Services, including user profile disks.
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