Likelihood to Recommend Remote Desktop services are well suited for people looking to connect to Local computers/Servers after connecting to VPN or Local Area Network. It is easy to use and performs superbly without any issues. However, it does not have support for connecting to Non-Windows-based Devices and Applications like Teamviewer beat RDP when it comes to connecting to machines outside one's network.
Read full review I think for ANY environment it's worth taking it out for a test drive. It's very powerful, especially when using the agent to connect to sessions where the end user doesn't need admin rights but when not in a VDI environment it likely would perform better with its built in functionality to ask for elevation. It is really powerful, even with the ability to run command line scripts without the user seeing (kind of a built in psexec) and it does work with Mac and Linux to some degree too so it really is worth trying out regardless of your environment. It may be just what you're looking for and the sales folks at DRE are not pushy at all, at least in my experience, and give great advice even at the expense of selling less licenses!
Read full review Pros When you connect with RDS, everything looks and feels (and is) exactly like you're sitting at that desktop. This is great for us and for users. You can sign in with RDS and the desktop will be the same as when you left it (if you choose to set it up that way). Although they take some setup, RemoteApps are a very handy way to let users access a program without requiring them to actually connect to a remote desktop on the server. Read full review The ability to send ad hoc links to a Samanage ticket allows users to be helped even if they're on their home computer and need assistance logging into our VPN was essential for us in the COVID-19 transition to an at home workforce! The methods of deployment are nice and easily managed through GPO. The interface of seeing waiting sessions and options to collaborate with other technicians is nice and user friendly. Read full review Cons Remote Desktop Services currently does not support multiple monitors on the terminal server. Unlike other applications such as Teamviewer, there's no feature to toggle between multiple screens even if they were connected to the terminal server. Remote Desktop Services should provide an option to scale up or down the screen size after a connection is established. Currently you can only adjust the screen size prior to a connection is established. So you'll have to take a best guess at what display screen resolution will fit best on your screen. Remote Desktop Services should offer some kind of menu to send special key strokes like Ctrl+Alt+Del to the terminal server. Currently the substitute for that particular combination is Ctrl+Alt+End. But I have yet to discover a replacement for other combination keystrokes such as Alt+PrintScrn. Read full review Connectivity to a helpdesk/knowledgebase would be nice feature so users can do self-help Offering a branded version of the client/agent would be a nice touch for businesses A web-only version of the technician console for remote support would be a nice feature Read full review Usability The initial setup for Remote Desktop Services is complex, and licensing is costly. Each user connects to their virtual desktop hosted by a single server or group of servers, so a change or issue with servers quickly impacts every single user at the same time. Aside from that, users appreciate seeing their same personal desktop from any device or geographical location.
Read full review Performance There are some third party tools available that allow you to manage multiple connections.
Read full review Support Rating As with any Microsoft Server product, support for Remote Desktop Services requires a paid support package. These are license-based and very costly, on top of the already costly product licensing. Microsoft's licensing is complicated to begin with, so setting up licensing alone essentially requires a licensing expert's counsel. There is community documentation and support available on Microsoft websites, as well as community websites.
Read full review SolarWinds Dameware Remote Everywhere is an easy to use software package. The manuals are easy to understand, and the installation is simple and straightforward. The Maintenance and support costs are relatively reasonable, and we maintain support and maintenance strictly for the upgrades rather than support. Over the years, SolarWinds has released numerous feature enhancements to the software package, making SolarWinds Dameware Remote Everywhere indispensable on our network.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We selected Remote Desktop Services based upon price alone. Other solutions on the market are significantly more expensive, but if your company can foot the bill you should seriously consider products that have been on the market for longer. The lack of an ability to easily upgrade farm servers has been a challenge for us - although it is still faster than updating an application on 2000+ machines. The lack of a centralized management console in 2008 R2 is also challenging, but you get by with the tools available to you. If you don't have the money to spend on Citrix or VMWare Horizon, Remote Desktop Services is a decent replacement.
Read full review We basically selected this for our one of the SolarWinds Project. In that we needed to take remote session and screensharing and do the analysis and troubleshooting. In our initial analysis itself we got the excellent result, and it was too quick. We were very much inspired from this. Later on, we started using SolarWinds Dameware Remote Everywhere (DRE) for almost all the projects of SolarWinds. Highly appreciated, thanks team.
Read full review Return on Investment Allowed remote users access from home Shared file access for multipolar users from a centralized location Cost to add additional users when maxed out Purchase multiple licenses for programs to run in virtual machines. Or unable to run on a virtual machine Read full review seamless installation of MSI or EXE No Codes to enter when installing agent Agent automatically connects to cloud dashboard our deployment tool has messed up a couple of times, so agents get uninstalled or not installed when this occurs, and we can't see a computer in the dashboard Read full review ScreenShots SolarWinds Dameware Remote Everywhere (DRE) Screenshots