Getting started: from a USB stick to a managed fleet

Step by step, in the order that works: try it on one device, install it, then set up the management folder and the manager, and from then on every new device needs only a domain account. About an hour for the whole path, most of it on the Windows side.

One computer at home? You do not need this path: OpenThinRDP at home takes two minutes and no domain.

What you need: a Windows Remote Desktop target (an RD Connection Broker with session hosts or a Hyper-V VDI collection, or a single Windows PC or server), a domain account to sign in with, one 64-bit x86 PC or thin client with 2 GB of RAM, and a USB stick.

1. Download openthinrdp-<version>.iso from the latest release and write it to a USB stick (Rufus in DD mode, balenaEtcher or dd).
2. Boot the device from the stick. The menu starts the live system after 10 seconds; it never writes to the disk.
3. The hardware test runs by itself: processor, memory, disk, graphics, firmware, network, sound, USB, TPM. Read it, and if you like, Send to the OpenThinRDP project opens a ready-made hardware report on GitHub that you send with your own account (nothing in it identifies the device or the network).
4. The settings open: set the broker (or the Windows PC) and the domain (its full DNS name, e.g. example.local). If your DHCP does not hand out the DNS servers of the domain, put your domain controllers in Primary DNS and Secondary DNS. Save, sign in with your own account: your Windows desktop opens.

Not working? Diagnostics (the ℹ button on the sign-in screen) shows what the device sees; the FAQ has the common cases.

Restart from the stick and choose Install: it shows the disk it will erase and asks before writing. It installs on the first internal disk, never on a USB disk. For many devices, Unattended install skips the question.

• UDP: nothing to install. The session hosts accept RDP over UDP by default; keep the Group Policy Select RDP transport protocols not configured or on "Use both UDP and TCP", and UDP port 3389 open towards the session hosts (details).
• Outside the office: an RD Gateway or a VPN (configuration).

1. Create a share on any file server, e.g. \\fileserver\thinclients.
2. Create a domain account only for the devices, e.g. svc-thinclient, never a person's account: every device keeps its password.
3. Permissions: the account reads the folder and writes only in status\; administrators have full control. The manager checks this and, after asking, sets it (step 5). The rules and why: management.md.

1. Download openthinrdp-manager-<version>.zip from the latest release of the manager and unpack it where only administrators can write (a share works: everybody starts the same copy). It updates itself from then on.
2. Start OpenThinRDP-Manager.exe and choose the management folder. OpenThinRDP-Manager.exe -Install on each PC puts a shortcut with the icon on its desktop.
3. Check permissions (top bar): it lists what is wrong for the devices' account and offers to correct it.
4. Settings > Devices: the settings for every device, at least the broker and the domain (and the DNS servers if your DHCP does not give the domain's). Each one is checked before it is saved; Edit as text... shows the same file as plain text.
5. Settings > Manager > Management folder > Name it in the domain: as a domain administrator, this writes the folder for the devices' account in \\<domain>\NETLOGON\OpenThinRDP\folders.conf.
6. Optional: the vault (the key for the remote screen and for signing updates with your own key), logo and background, the Health Center for the servers behind the desktops (manager.md).

Install it (step 2). In the settings at the first start leave the management folder empty and fill in only the domain, the devices' account and its password (and the DNS servers if your DHCP does not hand them out). Within five minutes the device finds its folder in the domain, takes the broker and every other setting from common.conf, and appears in the manager. Its event log says management folder from the domain.

• Updates: Release from GitHub in the manager, first on pilot devices, then Release to all devices; something broke, go back to the previous version in one click (manager.md).
• Power and commands: power on with Wake-on-LAN, restart, switch off or run a command on a device.
• Moving the folder later: Settings > Manager > Move the folder... moves the whole fleet in one step.

What is in production, what is only tested and what does not exist yet: status.md; production readiness area by area: maturity.md.

This page is docs/guides/getting-started.md as published on GitHub, where the documentation, the releases and the discussions are.