Cloudtidings.com

The RemoteFX feature allows Windows 7 SP1 and applications running in virtual machines to provide the same user experience as though they were running on a physical computer.

The RemoteFX feature also allows remote users to redirect local USB devices to their Remote Desktop sessions.( I will talk about this in my next article )

The following steps will help you understand how RemoteFX improves the user experience when running Windows 7 and applications in a virtualized environment :

1. Install Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

• Verify that the appropriate device drivers have been installed for the 3D accelerated video display adapter.Unless the appropriate device drivers are installed for the 3D accelerated video display adapter, you cannot start the Windows 7 virtual machine with the RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter Support enabled
• Install the Hyper-V server role.
• Install the Remote Desktop Services server role with the following role services:

 Remote Desktop Virtualization Host
 Core Services
 RemoteFX

2.Install Windows 7 SP1.

• Enable Remote Desktop connections
• Shutdown the Windows 7 virtual machine.

3. Enable RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter Support on Windows 7 Virtual Machine.

The RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter Support must be added to the Windows 7 virtual machine by performing the following steps on the computer running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1:

• Start Hyper-V Manager.
• In Hyper-V Manager, select the Windows 7 virtual machine and in the Actions pane click Settings.
• In the navigation pane, under the Hardware section, click Add Hardware.
• Add the adapter; start the virtual machine; verify that the adapter is installed and then restart the machine.
• In the properties pane, click RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter, and then click Add.
• The RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter appears in the list of hardware in the Hardware section as show in the following figure.
• Start the virtual machine; verify that you can login and that you have loaded the driver. The VM will ask to be restarted at this point, perform the restart.

4. To checkout that RemoteFX is properly installed and configured :

• Start the virtual machine running Windows 7 SP1.
• Establish a Remote Desktop session with Windows 7 SP1 by using the Remote Desktop Connection client in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
• On the Local Resources tab(Remote Desktop Connection client), in Apply Windows key combinations, select one of the following:
  • Only when using full screen. Select this option if you are going to run the Remote Desktop session in full screen.
  • On the remote computer. Select this option if you are going to run the Remote Desktop session in a window.
• On the Experience tab, in Performance section, select LAN (10Mbps or higher) and verify that all the check boxes are selected.

• Log on Windows 7 SP1.
• Change the theme for the Windows 7 to use an Aero theme. The desktop theme should appear with all the Aero features, such as transparency.

As you can see the RemoteFX feature allows Windows 7 SP1 and applications running in virtual machines to provide the same user experience as though they were running on a physical computer.

Other improvements in Windows 7 SP1 :

· Additional support for communication with third-party federation services – Additional support has been added to allow Windows 7 clients to effectively communicate with third-party identity federation services (those supporting the WS-Federation passive profile protocol).
·  Improved HDMI audio device performance – Updates have been incorporated into SP1 to ensure that connections between Windows 7 computers and HDMI audio devices are consistently maintained.
· Corrected behavior when printing mixed-orientation XPS documents – Prior to the release of SP1, some customers have reported difficulty when printing mixed-orientation XPS documents (documents containing pages in both portrait and landscape orientation) using the XPS Viewer, resulting in all pages being printed entirely in either portrait or landscape mode. This issue has been addressed in SP1, allowing users to correctly print mixed-orientation documents using the XPS Viewer.