Supported configurations for Remote Desktop Services
When it comes to supported configurations for Remote Desktop Services environments, the largest concern tends to be version interoperability. Most environments include multiple versions of Windows Server. For example, you may have an existing RDS deployment running an earlier version of Windows Server but want to upgrade to a later version of Windows Server to take advantage of the new features. The question then becomes, which RDS components can work with different versions and which need to be the same?
So with that in mind, here are basic guidelines for supported configurations of Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server.
Note
Make sure to review the system requirements for Windows Server.
Best practices
Use the most recent version of Windows Server for your Remote Desktop infrastructure (the Web Access, Gateway, Connection Broker, and license server). Windows Server is backward-compatible with these components. Meaning a Windows Server 2022 RD Session Host can connect to a 2025 RD Connection Broker, but not the other way around.
For RD Session Hosts - all Session Hosts in a collection need to be at the same level, but you can have multiple collections. For example, you can have a collection with Windows Server 2019 Session Hosts and one with Windows Server 2025 Session Hosts.
An RDS license server can only process client access licenses (CALs) from the same or previous versions of Windows Server. Meaning, if you upgrade your RD Session Host to Windows Server 2025, you also need to upgrade the license server.
Follow the upgrade order recommended in Upgrading your Remote Desktop Services environment.
If you are creating a highly available environment, all of your Connection Brokers need to be at the same OS level.
RD Connection Brokers
Starting in Windows Server 2016, there's no restriction for the number of Connection Brokers you can have in a deployment when using Remote Desktop Session Hosts (RDSH) and Remote Desktop Virtualization Hosts (RDVH). The following table shows which versions of RDS components work in a highly available deployment with three or more Connection Brokers.
| 3+ Connection Brokers in HA | RDSH or RDVH 2025 | RDSH or RDVH 2022 | RDSH or RDVH 2019 | RDSH or RDVH 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows Server 2025 Connection Broker | Supported | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Windows Server 2022 Connection Broker | N/A | Supported | Supported | Supported |
| Windows Server 2019 Connection Broker | N/A | N/A | Supported | Supported |
| Windows Server 2016 Connection Broker | N/A | N/A | N/A | Supported |
Support for graphics processing unit (GPU) acceleration
Remote Desktop Services support systems equipped with GPUs. Applications that require a GPU can be used over the remote connection. Additionally, GPU-accelerated rendering and encoding can be enabled for improved app performance and scalability.
Remote Desktop Services Session Hosts and single-session client operating systems can take advantage of the physical or virtual GPUs presented to the operating system in many ways, including the Azure GPU optimized virtual machine sizes, GPUs available to the physical RDSH server, and GPUs presented to the VMs by supported hypervisors.
See Which graphics virtualization technology is right for you? for help figuring out what you need. For specific information about DDA, check out Plan for deploying Discrete Device Assignment.
GPU vendors may have a separate licensing scheme for RDSH scenarios or restrict GPU use on the server OS, verify the requirements with your favorite vendor.
GPUs presented by a non-Microsoft hypervisor or Cloud Platform must have drivers digitally-signed by WHQL and supplied by the GPU vendor.
Remote Desktop Session Host support for GPUs
The following table shows the scenarios supported by different versions of RDSH hosts.
| Feature | Windows Server 2016 | Windows Server 2019 | Windows Server 2022 | Windows Server 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Use of hardware GPU for all RDP sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| H.264/AVC hardware encoding (if supported by the GPU) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Load balancing between multiple GPUs presented to the OS | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| H.264/AVC encoding optimizations for minimizing bandwidth usage | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| H.264/AVC support for 4K resolution | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
VDI support for GPUs
The following table shows support for GPU scenarios in the client OS.
| Feature | Windows 7 SP1 | Windows 8.1 | Windows 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Use of hardware GPU for all RDP sessions | No | Yes | Yes |
| H.264/AVC hardware encoding (if supported by the GPU) | No | No | Windows 10 1703 or later |
| Load balancing between multiple GPUs presented to the OS | No | No | Windows 10 1803 or later |
| H.264/AVC encoding optimizations for minimizing bandwidth usage | No | No | Windows 10 1803 or later |
| H.264/AVC support for 4K resolution | No | No | Windows 10 1803 or later |
RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter (vGPU) support
Note
Because of security concerns, RemoteFX vGPU is disabled by default on all versions of Windows starting with the July 14, 2020 Security Update and removed starting with the April 13, 2021 Security Update. To learn more, see KB 4570006.
Remote Desktop Services supports RemoteFX vGPUs when VM is running as a Hyper-V guest on Windows Server. The following guest operating systems have RemoteFX vGPU support:
- Windows 11
- Windows 10
- Windows Server in a single-session deployment only
Discrete Device Assignment support
Remote Desktop Services supports Physical GPUs presented with Discrete Device Assignment from Hyper-V hosts running Windows Server 2016 or later. See Plan for deploying Discrete Device Assignment for more details.
VDI deployment – supported guest operating systems
Windows Server RD Virtualization Host servers support the following guest operating systems:
- Windows 11 Enterprise
- Windows 10 Enterprise
Note
- Remote Desktop Services doesn't support heterogeneous session collections. The OSes of all VMs in a collection must be the same version.
- You can have separate homogeneous collections with different guest OS versions on the same host.
- The Hyper-V host used to run VMs must be the same version as the Hyper-V host used to create the original VM templates.
Single sign-on
RDS in Windows Server supports two main SSO experiences:
- In-app (Remote Desktop application on Windows, iOS, Android, and Mac)
- Web SSO
Using the Remote Desktop application, you can store credentials either as part of the connection info (Mac) or as part of managed accounts (iOS, Android, Windows) securely through the mechanisms unique to each OS.
To connect to desktops and RemoteApps with SSO through the inbox Remote Desktop Connection client on Windows, you must connect to the RD Web page through Internet Explorer. The following configuration options are required on the server side. No other configurations are supported for Web SSO:
- RD Web set to Forms-Based Authentication (Default)
- RD Gateway set to Password Authentication (Default)
- RDS Deployment set to "Use RD Gateway credentials for remote computers" (Default) in the RD Gateway properties
Note
Due to the required configuration options, Web SSO is not supported with smartcards. Users who login via smartcards might face multiple prompts to login.
For more information about creating VDI deployment of Remote Desktop Services, check out Supported Windows 10 security configurations for Remote Desktop Services VDI.
Using Remote Desktop Services with application proxy services
You can use Remote Desktop Services with Microsoft Entra application proxy. Remote Desktop Services doesn't support using Web Application Proxy.