For those of you who haven’t heard of it, RemoteFX is a desktop virtualization product that promises to provide a rich multi-media experience for virtual desktops and applications. The prototype can support full-fidelity video and 3D graphics that make it hard to tell if you are using a local installation or are connected to a remote virtual desktop.

Optimally, all a user has to do is plug in any peripheral devices and the virtual desktop will work just like the local PC.

Therein lies the problem

Today’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) can only provide certain high level redirection for printers, disk drives, etc. However, there are a large number of other types of devices that will need to be redirected for the user to have a local desktop experience using RemoteFX. Without the availability of dependable high quality drivers that can work across any hardware platform, this can’t work. So we are back to device-specific drivers … the same problems we have now.

Microsoft is exploring a solution that will redirect devices at the USB request level for their VDI desktops. This solution will not require and drivers on the client and will allow RemoteFX to provide a universal USB interface that should work with any USB device on any supported platform. They want to add to the capabilities of RDP not replace them.

Conclusion

I think this will be a great improvement if it works and will speed up business adopting remote virtual desktops for their mobile employees. We will just have to wait and see how long it takes to get this new protocol working.