On a Windows Server with RDS feature enabled, you might encounter an issue with Windows Update Coordinator being stuck at “Please wait while the application is preparing for the first use” during a program installation. This problem is very easy to resolve with Group Policy Editor (either locally through gpedit.msc or Domain Group Policy).
Navigate to Computer configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Application Compatibility and enable the setting “Turn off Windows Installer RDS Compatibility”.
After installing the program, I would recommend re-enabling Windows Update Coordinator by disabling the GPO setting or leaving it at “Not configured”.
If you have users complaining about incomplete search results on RDS Server 2019, especially in Outlook, this registry key might fix the problem. It did fix mine.
This will create the index database under C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows rather than in the user’s AppData folder. It should look something like this:
I got tasked with installing a brand new Windows Server 2019 with the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) role. It was a pretty straightforward installation, but minor things might work differently compared to previous versions of Windows Server (I was migrating off Windows Server 2012 R2).
Start by adding the RDS role through Server Manager.
Select the RDS installation:
I went for the Quick Start because my deployment is fairly basic.
Session-based deployment enables multi-session support on the server.
The server should be automatically selected.
The three roles (RD Connection Broker, RD Web Access and RD Session Host) will be installed.
After the installation a license warning will be shown in the Notification Center.
Two things are needed in order for licensing to work properly: The license server and licensing mode. In a production environment, usually there is a separate server hosting the RDS Licensing service.
Make sure you select the server by moving it to the right with the arrow.
In a production environment a custom group should be used to control the number of permitted users.
User profile disks were not needed in my environment.
After the creation, there are some things that should be changed in the Collection properties (Server Manager > Remote Desktop Services > Collections > Collection Name):
These are my specific settings, you should change the parameters based on your experience or leave them at their default values.
Older clients might have problems with these security settings (like Network Level Authentication – NLA)
