Your Windows desktops run on Proxmox VE, VMware vSphere/ESXi, Nutanix AHV, XCP-ng or KVM? OpenThinRDP connects to them today. Remote Desktop is spoken by Windows inside the VM, so the hypervisor underneath does not matter: the same client, the same features, the same five-minute setup as on Hyper-V.
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RDP over UDP: the desktop keeps moving on a lossy Wi-Fi or VPN where TCP freezes (the numbers).
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Everything a desk needs: USB sticks and signature keys, webcams and headsets for Teams, smart cards, serial instruments, several monitors.
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Any PC becomes a thin client: old office PCs and used thin clients, UEFI or BIOS, from 2 GB of RAM, no licence per device.
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The whole fleet from one window: central settings, signed updates with pilot devices, power on, remote screen, without a management server.
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And the servers too: the manager checks Proxmox (quorum, storage, backups, failing disks) and vSphere (hosts, datastores) next to your Windows side, free.
| You have | Set on the device | What the user gets |
|---|---|---|
| One Windows VM per desk (a reception desk, a till, a lab PC moved into a VM) |
BROKER = the name of the VM |
signs in and lands on that VM, full screen |
| An RDS farm whose session hosts are VMs on Proxmox or VMware |
BROKER = the RD Connection Broker, LOAD_BALANCE_INFO = the collection |
the broker sends each user to a session host |
| A Windows PC or server anywhere, also in a cloud |
BROKER = its name, with the RD Gateway or a VPN from outside |
the same |
The VM needs only what Windows needs for any Remote Desktop client: Remote Desktop on (Windows Pro, Enterprise or Server) and the users in Remote Desktop Users. Nothing to install on Proxmox, vCenter or in the VM.
- Download the ISO, write it to a USB stick and start the device from it: try it live, nothing is installed (getting started).
- In the settings of the device (the gear on the sign-in form): the name of the VM or the broker, the domain, the keyboard. Sign in: the desktop opens.
- Install it on the device from the boot menu when you like what you see.
- For a fleet, one file each: the management folder holds
config\common.conffor what all devices share andconfig\<device>.confwithBROKER=<its VM>for each desk; the manager writes them for you (management).
A Linux VM with xrdp is a Remote Desktop server too: set its name as BROKER and the
device opens the Linux desktop. xrdp speaks RDP over TCP; with TRANSPORT=auto, the default, the device uses TCP by
itself. Running it? Tell us how it goes.
On the roadmap: sessions over SPICE, Proxmox's own protocol, with the VM chosen in Proxmox itself for each user, Linux VMs and the VM console included, and VNC. Want it first, or something else, such as Citrix or Horizon? Open an issue: what users ask for comes first.
This page is docs/guides/proxmox-vmware-thin-client.md as published on GitHub, where the documentation, the releases and the discussions are.