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Terminal Server Development

Posted by Benny Tritsch on April 30, 2004

Extending the Terminal Server functionality with the .NET Framework

Question

Can I extend the Terminal Server functionality with the .NET Framework?

Answer

With .NET Framework 1.1 the terminal server API is not supported in any of the native .NET classes. You'll have to use Interop or other adequate programming techniques to access the terminal server functions in the Platform SDK terminal server library via VB.NET. I already talked to the Whidbey Windows Forms Evangelists and asked them if they could include terminal server methods in the next release of the .NET class library. But we'll have to wait for a while until this comes true...

In the meantime, check out the following links: MSDN: Interoperating with Unmanaged Code and Workthin: Terminal Services and Thin-Client Programming.

Extending the RDP Protocol

Question

How can I add more functionality to Terminal Services and is there any SDK for doing this?

Answer

There are two ways how you can get information about extending the RDP protocol, Terminal Services, and RDP clients:

1. Go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/termserv/termserv/about_terminal_services.asp and check out the articles about the Terminal Services API and Terminal Services Virtual Channels. The Terminal Server SDK needed for extending Terminal Services functionality is included in the Platform SDK.
2. License the RDP specification, which helps you to develop new RDP features. But this is the expensive way! If you still want to check it out, go to the page "Remote Desktop Protocol Specification Now Available Under License". Pricing information can be found at http://members.microsoft.com/consent/Info/PricingOverview.aspx.

Another source for information about RDP — thus not supported by Microsoft — is the SourceForge open source project rdesktop. They have their own RDP client and you can easily enhance the features of this client... if you decide to join the open source developer team. As far as I know, they didn't license the RDP protocol officially. They rather have a reverse engineering approach. If not, it wouldn't be an open source project ;-)

I played around with RDP Virtual Channels a little bit. If you also want to do so without licensing the RDP protocol from Microsoft, be prepared to invest a substantial amount of time until you'll be able to produce good results.