When working with centrally hosted applications on Windows, I often provide such programs as RemoteApp for a good user experience.

A remote app runs remotely on a terminal server, but the look and feel for a user is more like a locally installed app on a client computer - e.g. the app has its own resizable window and its own taskbar entry.

Publishing a remote app

For publishing remote apps, I use a variation of the following command. This is not only faster than working with the Server Manager GUI, but you also have more control over the resulting app with additional options that are not available via GUI.

Run PowerShell as admin:
# Change the arguments below.
$arguments = @{
    Alias = 'remote-app-01'
    CollectionName = 'remote-apps'
    CommandLineSetting = 'DoNotAllow'
    DisplayName = 'Remote App 1'
    FilePath = 'D:\bin\app.exe'
    FolderName = 'Business applications'
    ShowInWebAccess = $true
}

New-RDRemoteApp @arguments

Reference: New-RDRemoteApp

Downloading a remote app

If you need a .rdp file to distribute the app:

On the RDS host

  1. Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

  2. Navigate to Sites > Default Web Site > RDWeb.

  3. In the Actions menu on the right side, click on Browse Application.

This should open the RDS web page with the Edge browser. Note that you cannot download RDP apps with Internet Explorer.

  1. If you get a certificate warning, accept it and continue.

  2. Login with your account.

    Note that your account needs access to the Collection, otherwise the web page will be blank.

  3. Find the RDP app and click on it.

This should start the download.