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FreeRDP Plugin for Windows RoyalTS

I wonder if we might be able to get an alternative RDP plugin for Royal TS on Windows vs. the one based on native Windows RDP? Maybe something based on FreeRDP like in Royal TSX?


Why? A few reasons. One, the native Windows plugin doesn't support folder redirection...only full drive redirection. I'd rather just share my downloads folder with the shared terminal server, and not my whole C drive, thanks! Also, while this may be more of a bug that I consider a feature, FreeRDP ignores the server side setting requiring people to manually type a password. It's super annoying on my Windows machine to have to log in again manually every time I resize the window or change monitors, while on my Mac I can just do that without thinking because the app will automatically log in for me with a saved password.


Also, it might just be me, but FreeRDP seems quite a bit faster than the native Windows RDP plugin. That might be apples to oranges and my Mac is just faster, but it's good to have choice I think.


5 people like this idea

Hi Tim,


thanks for the feedback. Integrating FreeRDP in Royal TS for Windows is not as easy as it sounds. Right now we don't have the resources to work on something like that, especially when the Microsoft RDP ActiveX still works great. I suggest we let this thread open and see how much interest others have in FreeRDP for Windows.


Regards,
Stefan

Plus one here.


We just engineered a solution with a Socks5 proxy on Ubuntu just for this use case. I personally have used Royal TSX (Mac), which is based on the FreeRDP library, where the Socks5 Proxy works really well.


We were almost about to purchase a site license for Royal TS when one of our engineers realized that there is no proxy configuration available for Royal TS (with the Active X lib).


We are now looking for another RDP client solution, as we don't think that this will happen.

Thanks for the feedback, Magnus! As you can see, there hasn't been much demand for that in the past two years. I can understand that the proxy support is a desirable feature. Maybe we can integrate FreeRDP through an external application mode (similar to UltraVNC or PuTTY). This wouldn't be as hard as deeply integrating it into Royal TS on Windows the way we did on macOS. We will definitely explore this option and see if this can be done.


Regards,
Stefan

I think the lack of comments on this thread is not 100% representative of demand for this feature.


When I discovered the proxy configuration in Royal TSX (mac client), I was s positively surprised. Mainly as I had no idea that it was at all possible to connect RDP over a Socks5 proxy.


Since then, I have been using it extensively as a connection concentrator (to simplify firewall configurations, and to better track connections on the proxy server side).


A couple of weeks ago, I pushed the engineered solution, a jumphost installed as an Ubuntu server installation with:


* sniproxy

* danted (socks proxy)

* openssh (default installation)


With that setup, we could limit the access over VPN to just that jumphost server.


But when our windows based engineers started to use it, we realized that the proxy configuration is missing in the Royal TS (windows client).


So, the lack of interest is probably more a lack of marketing of the possibilities.


If it is possible to implement this as a FreeRDP plugin, that would most likely be enough for us.


Thanks for an otherwise very good product.


1 person likes this

Hey!

I'm absolutely seconding that interest here. :)

Our aim is to use virtual channels in the RDP connections. Apparently ActiveX RDP does support that, but not fully and for every connection. FreeRDP does fully support VCs.


BR,

Sven

Oh, and: Contacted your support for the first time today. So far I got excellent help! Thanks!

I also wished there was SOCKS support for RDP in Royal TS for Windows. This has been asked for for quite some time. For me an alternative would be to allow overrides of the target host and port at connection time similar to the dynamic credentials which allow you to determine the login credentials at connection time but there does not seem to be any way to do that as well.


2 people like this

FreeRDP Plugin is in the works and we even open sourced it here:

https://github.com/royalapplications/royalapps-community-freerdp


The plugin will be available in the next major version.


Regards,
Stefan


1 person likes this

Is there a plugin available now for Beta?

No, as mentioned above it will be in the next major version. We are working hard to get a beta out as soon as possible but I'm afraid it will still take a while.


2 people like this

No worries. Thanks for your efforts. Update this post when it's ready.

I saw there was a beta. The FreeRDP plugin doesn't work quite right for me yet. (No criticism; I know this is just a beta.)


When I connect (according to the log: successfully), I get a little titlebar in the bottom-left of the tab with the hostname of the connection. But the rest of the tab is blank, and I can't close the tab. Or the window. I have to force-close from Task Manager. I've dropped back to the Windows RDP plugin for the moment.

Hi Michael,


sorry that you are experiencing this behavior.

While the little title bar also appears for me when connecting, the screen shows the remote session as expected, which is fully functional for me. 


Would you please be able to share more information regarding your connection setup, the operating system you are using, and any other information that might be useful in a new ticket here:

https://www.royalapps.com/go/support-ticket-new


Thanks & best regards,

Christoph 


1 person likes this

Hi!


just to "officially" report here, the feature is available in the Royal TS V7 beta:

https://www.royalapps.com/ts/win/features-beta


Regards,
Stefan

Hiya,


Yep same odd issues when using FreeRDP plugin too, will just get the minimized freerdp window inside RoyalTS, although it thinks its connected.


Setup is Windows 11 remoting to various Server OS (2019/2022). I see it creates the wfreerdp.exe in user profile appdata temp, if i delete this file and reconnect then it usually works again ok.


Thanks

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