Windows 10: Remote Desktop Services 2019 generally available Windows Server 2019

Brink · Oct 3, 2018

We released the newest version of Remote Desktop Services (RDS), RDS 2019, on October 2, 2018. RDS 2019 builds on the strong foundation of RDS 2016, letting you rapidly deploy on-premises or in the cloud. RDS 2019 is generally available with Windows Server 2019.

RDS 2019 will give customers the opportunity to leverage fantastic enhancements that make it the optimal version of RDS, to date, with several areas of innovation to improve the administrative and client experiences.

We brought innovation centered around three areas in RDS 2019 – Simplify IT management, User experience, and Improved security.

Simplify IT management

We have time and again heard from customers that license management should focus on simplification to scale deployments. Over the past few years, we have focused on improving management of Remote Desktop (RD) Licensing servers and entitlement through Active Directory (AD).

Now, you will be able to leverage high availability RD Licensing servers with forward-compatibility for future versions of Windows Server to enable easier management of licenses from a variety of RDS releases.

We have also made it easier to manage licenses for your employees by bringing the ability for the RD Licensing servers to update RDS user Client Access Licenses (CALs) into AD objects without accessing AD directly.

Lastly, we added perfmon (Performance Counters) APIs to provide partners an easy way to access data to build monitoring dashboards and deliver a consistent user experience.

User experience

We have also invested in providing an enhanced user experience where end users will be able to leverage desktops and apps through RDS 2019 to maximize productivity.

To start, we have added modern notifications for RemoteApp in the Action Center to improve productivity with applications like Microsoft Outlook.

We have improved upon innovations in Discrete Device Assignment in RDS 2016 to bring better security, virtual machine (VM) isolation, and performance for your graphic-intensive workloads. These improvements in GPU virtualization technologies will result in reduced network traffic and smooth video playback.

In addition to the GPU virtualization technology, we added high-level redirection of built-in or attached video cameras to deliver optimized video stream at higher frame rates in new and legacy remote applications and desktops. Users can now have a better experience with video-intensive interactions.

Lastly, we have reduced CPU usage on the client and server and bandwidth with better image quality to bring a faster end-to-end web client experience.

Security

One of our primary goals as the Remote Desktop Services product team is to help improve your security posture for your desktop and app virtualization environments. We have improved security through several enhancements.

With Windows Admin Center integration, it is easy to consolidate all local and remote server management into a single pane.

We have brought several Windows Defender optimizations for multi-session to give you more confidence in bringing a secure, scalable and cost-effective desktop experience to end users.

We also added web client support for Single Sign-on (SSO) to deliver a streamlined authentication experience for users connecting via the web client.

A few additional features include easy-to-configure DTLS-based encryption, all of which, work toward providing a trusted end-to-end RDS deployment.

Deploying RDS 2019 on Azure

We recognize that giving you the ability and making it easier to deploy RDS on Azure gives you a lot of flexibility, scalability, security and several other advantages of Azure. To improve flexibility and ease of cloud adoption, we also support hybrid deployments where the infrastructure roles can be in Azure while the host Virtual Machines (VMs) can be on-premises.

Key enhancements for deploying RDS 2019 on Azure include using Azure Key Vault for simplified certificate management and using Azure SQL DB for the RD licensing high-availability feature.

Lastly, later in October we will announce the availability of Remote Desktop Services (RDS) subscriptions through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program. The availability of RDS in CSP addresses customer needs for additional cost-effective solutions that support desktop and app virtualization.

With RDS Subscriptions, partners can directly sell RDS subscriptions through our CSP program, eliminating the extra step of customers and partners acquiring different licenses through various programs. With this model, customers can enjoy a faster licensing cycle due to CSP integration with other Microsoft licenses including Windows Server, SQL Server, and Office to make it easy for partners to simplify the buying process.

For more technical information on RDS 2019, please refer to the RDS documentation page.
Download Windows Server 2019 that includes RDS 2019 now.

Frequently asked questions

Q: When will I be able to download the final version of Windows Server 2019?
A: Windows Server 2019 that includes RDS 2019 became generally available on October 2, 2018. It is available for evaluation and download through Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).

Q: Is Remote Desktop Server included in Windows Server 2019?
A: Yes. Remote Desktop Server 2019 will be a server role in Windows Server 2019.

Q: How do we view this announcement with Windows Virtual Desktop announcement at Ignite?
A: This is the most up-to-date version of RDS to enable running the latest on-premises multi-session virtualization available with Windows Server. Windows Virtual Desktop is a desktop and application virtualization service on Azure. Read the blog post Microsoft 365 adds modern desktop on Azure for more information.

Q: How is RDS on Azure different from Windows Virtual Desktop?
A: RDS is the ideal on-premises desktop and application virtualization solution, with a Windows Server operating system to provide a multi-session desktop experience. When deployed on Azure, you can scale your deployment and manage RD infrastructure roles in your own subscription. Windows Virtual Desktop enables customers to deliver a brand-new multi-session capability with a full Windows 10 experience, with the scale and flexibility of Azure. With this new service, Microsoft manages the infrastructure roles. Windows Virtual Desktop will be available for public preview later this calendar year. For more information, please visit the product page.

Q: Will there be a path to go from RDS to Windows Virtual Desktop?
A: Yes, we are developing Azure documentation guidance for this migration path as Windows Virtual Desktop gets closer to public preview later in calendar year 2018.
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Source: Remote Desktop Services 2019 generally available with Windows Server 2019 - Windows Server Blog

:)

Ahhzz · Oct 3, 2018

Office 2019

Only supported on Win10. Sorry, 8.1 users, only 4 years old, gotta go.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16960640/microsoft-office-2019-windows-10-support

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com...-to-office-and-windows-servicing-and-support/

Spoiler Office 2019
Last year at Ignite, we announced Office 2019 – the next perpetual version of Office that includes apps (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, and Skype for Business) and servers (including Exchange, SharePoint, and Skype for Business). Today we’re pleased to share the following updates:

Office 2019 will ship in H2 of 2018. Previews of the new apps and servers will start shipping in the second quarter of 2018.

Office 2019 apps will be supported on:

Any supported Windows 10 SAC release

Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2018

The next LTSC release of Windows Server

The Office 2019 client apps will be released with Click-to-Run installation technology only. We will not provide MSI as a deployment methodology for Office 2019 clients. We will continue to provide MSI for Office Server products.

Brink · Oct 3, 2018

Windows Server 2019 - Announcing general availability in October 2018

I am thrilled to be back at Ignite this year! Over the last two years, I’ve had the pleasure to announce major releases of Windows Server. Two years ago, it was the launch of Windows Server 2016. Last year, it was the first release in the Semi-Annual Channel, Window Server, version 1709. This year is no different.

Today, I’m excited to announce that Windows Server 2019 will be generally available in October and we have updated Windows Admin Center, version 1809, to support Windows Server 2019 and Azure hybrid scenarios. Windows Server 2019 builds on the foundation of Windows Server 2016, the fastest adopted version of Windows Server with 10s of millions of instances deployed worldwide. Customers like Alaska Airlines, Tyco, and Tieto have adopted Windows Server 2016 to modernize their datacenters.

Through various listening channels such as the Insider program, product telemetry analysis, and industry trends, we heard loud and clear that hybrid, security, agility, and TCO are top of mind for our customers. Datacenter modernization is critical to support your business and deliver innovation, especially given the competitive landscape today. Windows Server 2019 is designed and engineered to help modernize your datacenter, delivering on four key areas:

Hybrid: The move to the cloud is a journey. A hybrid approach, one that combines on-premises and cloud environments working together, is a core element of our customers’ modernization strategy. This is why hybrid is built in to Windows Server 2019 and Windows Admin Center. To make it easier to connect existing Windows Server deployments to Azure services, we built interfaces for hybrid capabilities into the Windows Admin Center. With Windows Admin Center and Windows Server 2019, customers can use hybrid features like Azure Backup, Azure File Sync, disaster recovery to extend their datacenters to Azure. We also added the Storage Migration Service to help migrate file servers and their data to Azure without the need to reconfigure applications or users.

Security: Security continues to be a top priority for our customers. With the security threats growing in number and becoming more and more sophisticated, we continue to keep a persistent focus on security. Our approach to security is three-fold: Protect, Detect, and Respond. We bring security features in all three areas to Windows Server 2019. On the Protect front, we had previously introduced Shielded VMs to protect sensitive virtualized workloads such as Domain Controllers, PCI data, sensitive healthcare, and financial data among others. In Windows Server 2019, we extended support of Shielded VMs to Linux VMs. On the Detect and Respond front, we enabled Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), that detects attacks and zero-day exploits among other capabilities. Windows Server 2019 also includes Defender Exploit Guard to help you elevate the security posture of your IT environment and combat ransomware attacks.

Application Platform: A key guiding principle for us on the Windows Server team is a relentless focus on the developer experience. We learned from your feedback, a smaller container image size will significantly improve experience of developers and IT Pros who are modernizing their existing applications using containers. In Windows Server 2019, we reduced the Server Core base container image to a third of its size. We also provide improved app compatibility, support for Service Fabric and Kubernetes, and support for Linux containers on Windows to help modernize your apps. A feedback we constantly hear from developers is the complexity in navigating environments with Linux and Windows deployments. To address that, we previously extended Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) into insider builds for Windows Server, so that customers can run Linux containers side-by-side with Windows containers on a Windows Server. In Windows Server 2019, we are continuing on this journey to improve WSL, helping Linux users bring their scripts to Windows while using industry standards like OpenSSH, Curl & Tar.

Hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI): HCI is one of the latest trends in the server industry today. It is primarily because customers understand the value of using servers with high performant local disks to run their compute and storage needs at the same time. In Windows Server 2019, we democratize HCI with cost-effective high-performance software-defined storage and networking that allows deployments to scale from small 2-node, all the way up to 100s of servers with Cluster Sets technology, making it affordable regardless of the deployment scale. Through our Windows Server Software Defined program, we partner with industry leading hardware vendors to provide an affordable and yet extremely robust HCI solution with validated design.

In October, customers will have access to Windows Server 2019 through all the channels! We will publish a blog post to mark the availability of Windows Server 2019 soon.

Learn more about Windows Server 2019

This week at Ignite we have a complete line-up of Windows server sessions to go deep on all the aspects of Windows Server 2019. Join us in person at one of the sessions throughout the week or watch it online. Be sure to stop by the Windows Server area in the Expo hall where you can meet the engineers who built this amazing product and check out our amazing partners across the Expo hall showcasing their Windows Server and Windows Server Software Defined solutions. They will be happy to answer any question you may have. We have a Windows Server Fans’ appreciation party at Ignite on Wednesday, the 26th of September where you can meet your favorite Windows Server experts.

Finally, a huge thank you to our partners and Windows Server community. Since the release of Windows Server 2019 preview earlier this year, we have seen over 500,000 server instances deployed worldwide! Your feedback is essential to the product and I know I can speak for the engineering team when I say, your enthusiasm for Windows Server motivates us to deliver amazing products to power your business!

Frequently asked questions on Windows Server 2019

Q: When will I be able to download the final version of Windows Server 2019?
A: Windows Server 2019 will be generally available in October. We will publish another blog to inform that the build is available for evaluation and download through Azure Marketplace or Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).

Q: How do I stay informed about when the Windows Server 2019 GA build will be available for download?
A: We will publish a blog to mark the availability of Windows Server 2019. Follow Windows Server on Twitter and Facebook to get updates.

Q: Is Remote Desktop Server included in Windows Server 2019?
A: Yes. Remote Desktop Server 2019 will be a server role in Windows Server 2019.

Q: Will Microsoft release a new version of System Center?
A: Yes. System Center 2019 will be generally available in the first half of calendar year 2019.

Q: What are the different editions available for Windows Server 2019 and where can I find more information on licensing Windows Server 2019?
A: Windows Server 2019 will be available in Datacenter, Standard, and Essentials editions. Please visit our Licensing page for more information on how to license Windows Server.
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Source: Windows Server 2019 - Announcing general availability in October - Windows Server Blog

Brink · Oct 3, 2018

Windows Server 2019 Essentials update

For more than a decade the Windows Server team has been releasing Windows Server editions tailored to meet the needs of small business environments. Windows Server 2016 Essentials is the current in-market edition of Windows Server made for small business and is available for companies with up to 25 users.

As we started working on next version, Windows Server 2019, we looked closely on the impact of recent technology trends on small business customers. We observed that cloud computing, in addition to affecting how large enterprises think about their datacenters, is also impacting how small companies are planning their IT services. For example, we have Microsoft 365 Business that is easier to acquire, integrate with other cloud services, and is particularly effective in environments that do not have full-time IT staff. Especially, capabilities that small businesses need, like file sharing and collaboration are best achieved with a cloud service like Microsoft 365.

Furthermore, we recently collaborated with the MVP community and other influencers to listen and get a deeper understanding of the transition that our small business customers are going through. While our small business customers are embracing cloud services where they can, on-premises servers are still valuable and desired in the short term for reasons such as price and ability to run traditional applications that may not yet have corresponding cloud-based functionality.

All of this led to our decision to offer yet another version of on-premises server for small businesses – Windows Server 2019 Essentials. This edition will be released along with the other editions of Windows Server 2019 later this year. There is a strong possibility that this could be the last edition of Windows Server Essentials.

Windows Server 2019 Essentials will have the same characteristics as the 2016 version that small business look for:

Single license that includes Client Access Licenses (CAL) for up to 25 users/50 devices

Lower price point

Ability to run traditional applications and other features, such as file and print sharing

What’s in Windows Server 2019 Essentials

Windows Server 2019 Essentials has the same licensing and technical characteristics as its predecessor, Windows Server 2016 Essentials. If configured as a Domain Controller, Windows Server 2019 Essentials must be the only Domain Controller, must run all Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) roles, and cannot have two-way trusts with other Active Directory domains.

Windows Server 2019 Essentials includes the new hardware support and features and improvements like Windows Server 2019 Standard, including Storage Migration Services, System Insights, and many more.

Windows Server 2019 Essentials will not include the Essentials Experience role. The Essentials Experience primarily simplified file sharing and device management. For a better management experience, we now have Windows Admin Center.

Looking ahead

First and foremost, customers currently using Windows Server 2016 Essentials will be supported according to Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) servicing timeline.

For companies with more than 25 users/50 devices, or companies that have potentially grown beyond 25 users, Windows Server 2019 Standard – and potentially the Datacenter edition – can provide more flexible deployment options.

Finally, we highly recommend our small customers to consider Microsoft 365 as an option for their file sharing and collaboration needs. Microsoft 365 provides a complete, intelligent solution, including Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security. Microsoft 365 Business includes a richer feature set including Office, e-mail and calendaring, file storage in the cloud, data protection, and so much more, allowing our small customers to evolve their business and achieve new levels of productivity.

We will continue to listen to our customers and provide solutions that meet their small business needs.
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Source: Windows Server 2019 Essentials update Windows Server Blog

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