Can RDP clients launch remote applications and not desktops

Question

Can RDP clients launch a remote application and then only display that application  and not the desktop   The application would appear fullscreen within the client and if the application were closed the session would end

User · Answer

At least on 2008R2 if the accounts are only used for RDP and not for local logins then you can set this on a per-account basis. That should work for thin clients. If the accounts are also used on local desktops then this would also affect those logins.

In ADUsers&Computers, open the properties for the account and go to the Environment tab. On that tab, check "Start the following program at logon" and specify the path and executable for the program.

User · Answer

This is quite easily achievable    We need to allow any unlisted programs to start from RDP   1 1 Save the script below on your desktop  the extension must end with  reg     Windows Registry Editor Version 5 00       HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows NT CurrentVersion Terminal Server TSAppAllowList       fDisabledAllowList  dword 00000001     nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp 1 2 Right click on the file and click Merge  Yes  Ok     Modifying our  rdp file  2 1 At the end of our file  add the following code     remoteapplicationmode i 1 remoteapplicationname s This will be the optional description of the app remoteapplicationprogram s Relative or absolute path to the app                             Example  taskmgr or C  Windows system32 taskmgr exe  remoteapplicationcmdline s Here you d put any optional application parameters      Or just use this one to make sure that it works    remoteapplicationmode i 1 remoteapplicationname s  remoteapplicationprogram s mspaint remoteapplicationcmdline s     nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp 2 2 Enter your username and password and connect     nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp 3  Now you can use your RemoteApp without any issues as if it was running on your local machine

User · Answer

This is called  seamless  mode  rdesktop  the RDP client for Unix  is capable of this  From the manpage       -A     Enable SeamlessRDP  In this mode  rdesktop creates a X11 window for each window on the server           side   This  mode  requires  the  SeamlessRDP  server side component  which is available from           http   www cendio com seamlessrdp    When using this option  you  should  specify  a  startup           shell which launches the desired application through SeamlessRDP     See mentioned Cendio website for more information

User · Answer

Using an RDP connection file you can set the alternate shell to be your application  the file syntax is like  alternate shell s c  winnt system32 notepad exe   and you pass that as a command-line argument to mstsc exe  this similar to chrissr s solution  but without affecting every RDP session you launch   A fuller summary of settings here

User · Answer

I think Citrix does that kind of thing  Though I m not sure on specifics as I ve only used it a couple of times  I think the one I used was called XenApp but I m not sure if thats what you re after

User · Answer

Yes  you can change the default shell from Explorer exe to a specific application   In Regedit  navigate to HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows NT CurrentVersion Winlogon   The current shell should be Explorer exe   Change it to YourApp exe   That will change the shell for all users who log on to the machine   If you only want to change it for a specific user  go to the same key in HKEY CURRENT USER instead

User · Answer

This is called RemoteApp  To use it you need to install Terminal Services  which is now called Remote Desktop Services   https   social technet microsoft com wiki contents articles 10817 publishing-remoteapps-in-windows-server-2012 aspx

User · Answer

alternate shell  doesn t seem to work anymore in recent versions of Windows  RemoteApp is the way to go   remoteapplicationmode i 1 remoteapplicationname s Purpose of the app shown to user    remoteapplicationprogram s C      some exe remoteapplicationcmdline s    To get this to work under e g  Windows 10 Professional  one needs to enable some policy    HKEY LOCAL MACHINE SOFTWARE Policies Microsoft Windows NT Terminal Services   fAllowUnlistedRemotePrograms  dword 00000001

User · Answer

Another way is shown in this CodeProject article   http   www codeproject com KB IP tswindowclipper aspx  The basic idea is to create a virutal channel that sends the windows position of the app s  you want to show  then only render that part of the window on the client

User · Answer

RDP will not do that natively   As other answers have said -- you ll need to do some scripting and make policy changes as a kludge to make it hard for RDP logins to run anything but the intended application   However  as of 2008  Microsoft has released application virtualization technology via Terminal Services that will allow you to do this seamlessly

[rdp] Can RDP clients launch remote applications and not desktops

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