Microsoft Remote Desktop Mac Slow



I am running a Windows 2012 R2 servers on a VMware ESXi environment ( 6.5.0 Update 1 (Build 5969303 ) . I experience an extreme poor performance on the Windows 2012R2 server when connection with any RDP-client ( Windows and Mac )

The hardware shouldn’t be an issue.

Is there any reason that VNC is very slow on my network (using Tight compression, 256 colors, high JPEG compression, etc. basically all the fast settings) compared to Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection? I have my MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz running Vine Server (used to be osXvnc), and I access. Dec 07, 2015 On the far computer, open System Preferences / Displays. Change Resolution from 'Default for display' to 'Scaled'. In the list below, select: 1600 x 1000. This change alone got me most of the improvement I see. With the latest of Microsoft’s line of server operating systems becoming more widely used, there are a lot of new servers being built (or spun up) on Windows Server 2012. One thing you may have noticed, every server with Windows Server 2012 connected to via Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) was displaying a huge amount of lag on the mouse. On the Mac side, pay attention to the speed part in the trackpad settings. Here I suggest you bring it to the fastest. Also, in the remote (windows) machine, increase the line per speed from default 3 to 10 And again, on the windows side, set the mouse speed to the fastest in the additional options section. Enabled: Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication. The Logon Method is Password Authentication. Bypass RD Gateway server for local addresses is NOT checked. Also I noticed on Server 2016 that one of the UDP channels is not Connecting.

  • the server does not have a high overall load
  • there is no high CPU load
  • there is enough RAM
  • there is no high I/O
Microsoft remote desktop mac os

This is what I did to solve the issue and get back to fast RDP-performance.

1. Finetune “Remote Desktop Services” in Group Policy

Open Group Policy Editor ( Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc )

Goto Computer Config > Windows Settings > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Connections > Select RDP transport protocol = Use only TCP

You can also set this on the client side by specifying:

Computer Config > Windows Settings > Admin Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Connection Client > Turn off UDP on Client = Enabled

2. Disable “DisableTaskOffload” in the Registry

I also added below registry setting to improve performance.

A little explanation of TCP Offloading:

“TCP offload engine is a function used in network interface cards (NIC) to offload processing of the entire TCP/IP stack to the network controller. By moving some or all of the processing to dedicated hardware, a TCP offload engine frees the system’s main CPU for other tasks. However, TCP offloading has been known to cause some issues, and disabling it can help avoid these issues.”

  • Open RegEdit on the Windows Server machine.
  • Navigate to this registry key in the tree on the left: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesTcpipParameters
  • Right-click on the right side, and add a new DWORD (32-bit) Value
  • Set the value name to DisableTaskOffload and the value data to 1

Now Reconnect to the Server via RDP (to a new session) and your performance should be normal.

TheRemote Desktop Services

Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Servicesare widely used by companies to let users use applications inside a serverfarm.

Microsoft Remote Desktop Mac Slow Speed

Typically the reasons to use RemoteDesktop are:

Microsoft Remote Desktop Mac App

  • Standardized environment and configuration
  • Easy maintenance during application version upgrades
  • Lower resource usage on the clients
  • Better bandwidth usage in case of a slow connection orhigh latency
  • Seamless integration with the option to push individualapplications to the clients

Client-sideLimits

The connection to a Remote Desktopfarm uses a proprietary Microsoft protocol (RDP).

All the Windows clients by default havethe RDP client pre-installed, but on non-Windows clients some troubles canarise.

Mac OS and Android clients can use aMicrosoft App.

For Linux clients, some free RDPclients exist, but almost all of them have trouble now during the initial connection due to the RDPprotocol security requirements implemented by Microsoft due to the CredSSP vulnerability.

RemoteDesktop Web Client: The Unknown Feature

Since the release of Windows Server2016, Microsoft has developed a Remote Desktop Services add-on: the RemoteDesktop Web Client.

This add-on can be installed over anexisting Remote Desktop farm and lets users access the organization’s RemoteDesktop infrastructure through a compatible web browser. They can then interactwith remote apps or desktops just like they would with a local PC, no matterwhere they are. Once you’ve set up your Remote Desktop web client, all that yourusers need to get started is the URL to access the client, their credentials,and a supported web browser.

Desktop

No more RDP clients are required:just a modern HTML5 web browser.

Of course there are still somelimitations, but in most contexts they have a low impact:

  • Printing is redirected to a Remote Desktop VirtualPrinter which generates a PDF file.
    This PDF file can then be downloaded and printed locally on the client.
  • The web client currently only supports copying andpasting of text.

In any event, the web client is justan add-on, and doesn’t replace the old connection model.

TheWeb Client User Interface

This is an example of the login pageon Mac OSX Catalina with the Safari web browser:

After the login, this is an exampleof a published Remote Desktop:

Howto Monitor It?

As with the old-style Remote Desktop,the Web Client should also be monitored client-side with an Alyvix agent.

This is the only way to simulate useroperations: the Alyvix product is designed for this job. It can repeat thesetasks continuously, building up metrics based on common user RDS tasks.

For further details, see my previous Blogs about RDP monitoring.

Alessandro Romboli

My name is Alessandro and I joined Würth-Phoenix early in 2013. I have over 20 years of experience in the IT sector: For a long time I've worked for a big Italian bank in a very complex environment, managing the software provisioning for all the branch offices. Then I've worked as a system administrator for an international IT provider supporting several big companies in their infrastructures, providing high availability solutions and disaster recovery implementations. I've joined the VMware virtual infrastructure in early stage, since version 2: it was one of the first productive Server Farms in Italy. I always like to study and compare different technologies: I work with Linux, MAC OSX, Windows and VMWare. Since I joined Würth Phoenix, I could also expand my experience on Firewalls, Storage Area Networks, Local Area Networks, designing and implementing complete solutions for our customers. Primarily, I'm a system administrator and solution designer, certified as VMware VCP6 DCV, Microsoft MCP for Windows Server, Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager, SQL Server, SharePoint. Besides computers, I also like photography, sport and trekking in the mountains.

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