Azure RemoteApp Remote Desktop Services Role – join to domain really required?

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Frane Borozan — No Comments ↓

This is open letter to Microsoft Azure RemoteApp team:

For the Microsoft Azure RemoteApp you are required to install Remote Desktop Services role on the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2. To install Remote Desktop Services you are required to join the server to the domain. So there is one step more when after all you will sysprep the image and with the sysprep you loose all the domain settings. So in the Remote Desktop Services installation wizard I would left out requirement for the active directory because obviously we don’t need it here as the remote image will work with the Remote Desktop Services role when provisioned and joined to some other domain. So pls remove this ridiculous requirement as obviously it is not needed by the Remote Desktop Services role (some ppl would love to deploy single remote desktop server somewhere today as well).