Step by step installation guide installing a RD Session Host with RemoteFX (Part 3)

by Arjan | Nov 27, 2010 | RemoteFX

So in part 1 and part 2 we installed a Hyper-V host and a Remote Desktop Session Host both with Server 2008 R2 SP1. This means we are ready to rumble.

Sorry to be the partypooper but that’s not exactly true, yet. Let’s see what i mean:

When examening my Hyper-V host and selecting the settings for my WINSRRDSH01 server. I see there is a RemoteFX Video Adapter option but it’s greyed out. So what should we do to be able to add (and use) RemoteFX?

There are a couple of needs for this, but let’s start with the obvious, the Hyper-V host. On the host we must do four things to enable RemoteFX:

1. Make sure SP1 RC for Windows Server 2008 R2 is installed. (If you didn’t already, download it here. And install it)
2. Add the Remote Desktop Services / RemoteFX role
3. Use GPedit.msc to set RemoteFX compression
4. Set Windows Firewall

So let’s check or set them step by step:

Make sure SP1 RC for Windows Server 2008 R2 is installed

• Go to Start and right click on Computer in the menu click on Properties. In the screen you’ll see if SP1 is installed:

If you didn’t install SP1 by now, do so by following this link.

Add the Remote Desktop Services / RemoteFX role

Go to start go to administrative tools and click Server Manager. The Server Manager window will open:

Go to Roles and on the right side click on Add Roles:

The Before you begin screen will show, click Next. The Select Server Roles window will show. Select Remote Desktop Services and click Next:

The Remote Desktop Services role will show. Click Next:

The Select Role Services window will Show. Click RemoteFX, there will be a Add Roles Wizard popup (click Add Required Role Services) and click Next:

The Confirm Installation Selections window will show. Click Install:

And after install the Installation Results window will show. Click close, and on the reboot window clik yes:

After reboot log back in and let the installation continue. The Installation Results window shows. Click close:

We’re almost there, just a couple more changes and we’re ready to try RemoteFX….

Let’s begin with giving our RDS Host a RemoteFX 3D video adapter. In the Server Manager go to the Hyper-V host and right click on the RDS vm, click settings.

Click Add Hardware select the RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter and click add:

The RemoteFX 3D video adapter will be added, you can then choose the maximum monitors and resolution options (for me 1 monitor 1280 x 1024). Click Apply:

Just to be sure memory will not be a bottleneck we’ll set dynamic memory (see this post for more info). Select Memory, select memory and set Maximum RAM. Click OK:

On the host, the guest and the client, the following firewall settings must be changed, Remote Desktop – RemoteFX select all 3 (just to be sure ;-)):

The last settings need to be made on the RD Session Host and the client computer. First the RDSH go to start, run and enter gpedit.msc press enter:

In the Group Policy Editor Console go to Computer Settings, Administrative templates, Windows Components, Remote Desktop Services, Remote Desktop Session Host, Remote Session Environment, and double click on Configure RemoteFX:

In the Configure RemoteFX window select enable and click OK:

That’s it for the RD Session Host. For the client we can do some tuning. Go to start run gpedit.msc press enter, and go to the same folder as you did on the RDSH. So go to Computer Settings, Administrative templates, Windows Components, Remote Desktop Services, Remote Desktop Session Host, Remote Session Environment, and double click on Optimize visual Experience when using RemoteFX:

In the Optimize visual exprience… window select enable and set Screen capture Rate and Screen Capture Quality to Higest, and press OK:

Your al set to test RemoteFX on a RD Session Host now! Start a mstsc.exe and go to experience. Set the performance on LAN (10 Mbps or higher):

On the general tab set the name to the name of your RD Session Host and click connect to set up a connection. To check if RemoteFX is installed correctly do the following check. Log in to the RD Session host with administrative rights. Go to start, administrative tools and click on event viewer. In event viewer go to Application and Services\Logs\Microsoft\Windows\RemoteDesktopServices-RemoteDesktopSession Manager. If the your client computer is connected to the RDSH by using RemoteFX for Remote Desktop Session Host, Event ID 1000 will be shown:

The installation of RemoteFX is completed! Hope it works as good for you as it did for me! See you on the next post!

Download PDF of Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3