RDS customizations

This is a bit of a long post, so I apologize in advance… Sorry, but not sorry. There are a lot of things that you can customize in a RDS / RD Web Access deployment.

I’m doing these edits, or customizations on a Windows Server 2019 deployment, they should [in theory] work though on RDS deployments as far back as Windows Server 2012/R2, though your mileage may vary – see disclaimer below.

Standard disclaimer… Make sure to backup folders and files before you start making changes. I’m not responsible for anything you break, you’ve been warned.

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Eliminate “/RDWeb” from the RDS URL

When adding the RD Web Access role on your remote desktop gateway or broker, it will auto-magically create the RDWeb website in IIS for you.

RDS sets up the the url for your site in the following format: “rds.playswellwithflavors.com/RDWeb” or “example.com/RDWeb”. However, you likely are not using this IIS host to serve up any other webpages other that RDS Web Access… So you probably want to eliminate the need for user to have to enter that “/RDWeb” at the end of the url. And make it appear as just “rds.playswellwithflavors.com” or “example.com”.

Microsoft makes this very easy to accomplish with a simple redirect in IIS.

• Open IIS.
• Click on the ‘Default Web Site’ in the left-side pane.
• Click on ‘HTTP Redirect’ in right-side pane.
• Check the box for ‘Redirect requests to this destination’.
  Enter in the field under it: /RDWeb
• Click ‘Apply’.
• Restart IIS
• Test your website to confirm that you can reach it with the base url, without the “/RDWeb” appended at the end.

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Password Reset Link

This customization will edit the Web Access Login Page to add a password reset link where users can change their AD passwords from the main login page.

• Open IIS
• In the left-hand pane, drill down into “Server”->”Sites”->”Default Site”->”RDWeb”->”Pages”
• Double-click on “Application Settings” in the right-hand pane.
• Find the value “PasswordChangeEnabled” and double-click on it. Edit it to ‘True’.
• Click ‘Ok’.

Now that we edited that value to ‘true’, if the user’s password expires they will be prompted to change their password. That’s handy, right!?
Well, if you liked that, then let me tell you that it is possible to go one step further and make a link on the main page for them to reset their password, anytime.

• Open the following folder: %windir%\Web\RDWeb\
• Since we are going to be editing stuff here, make a backup copy of the “Pages” folder.
• Now open the folder: %windir%\Web\RDWeb\Pages\en-US\
• Right-click on the file “login.aspx” and select ‘Edit’.
• With the file open, press “Ctrl+F” and then search for “userpass”.

• Scroll down under the table that “userpass” is in. This is where we want to add our password reset link. Copy the code below and paste it into your file, then save and close it.

<tr>
<td align="right">
Click <a href="password.aspx" target="_blank">here</a> to reset your password.
</td>
</tr>

• Reload the page in your browser to view the password reset link.

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Change “Domain\user name” to “Email”

At the Web Access login page, I like to change the prompt for “Domain\user name” to “Email Address”. Call me cynical, but I find that users can remember their email address, but will almost always call and ask what to put as the domain. I like to just change this to what the user will understand and prevent them from needing to call me.

• Now open the folder: %windir%\Web\RDWeb\Pages\en-US\
• Make sure that you have already made a backup copy of the “Pages” folder.
• Right-click on the file “login.aspx” and select ‘Edit’.
• Look for “L_DomainUserNameLabel_Text” on line 21.
• Change the value “Domain\\user name:” to “Email Address:”.

• Look for “L_DomainNameMissingLabel_Text” on line 30.
• Change the value “You must enter a valid domain name.” to “You must enter a valid email address.”

• Save and close the file.
• Reload the page in your browser to view the change.

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Changing the RD Logos

You can brand your RD Web Access page with your company logo. There are two logos you can change. One is in the upper left corner, and the other one is smaller and in the upper right corner.

• Take your logo image and resize it into two .png files with the names and dimensions specified below;
  • logo_01.png – 16pixels x 16pixels
  • logo_02.png – 48pixels x 48pixels
• Now open the folder: %windir%\Web\RDWeb\Pages\images\
• Make sure that you have already made a backup copy of the “Pages” folder.
• Copy and paste the your logo image files into this folder.
• Open IIS and restart the service.
• Reload the page in your browser to view the change.

• The “logo_01.png” file will replace the icon in the upper right corner.

• The “logo_02.png” file will replace the icon in the upper left corner.

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Change the “To protect against” message

This is the message on the login page that is beneath the “Sign In” button. You can customize it to your own message.

• Now open the folder: %windir%\Web\RDWeb\Pages\en-US\
• Make sure that you have already made a backup copy of the “Pages” folder.
• Right-click on the file “login.aspx” and select ‘Edit’.
• Look for “L_TSWATimeoutLabel_Text” on line 43.
• Modify that value there to include your custom message.

• Save and close the file.
• Reload the page in your browser to view the change.

Change the RD Workspace name and other text

You can customize other text displayed on your RDWeb login page. Things like the page title and other small branding type changes…

• Now open the folder: %windir%\Web\RDWeb\Pages\en-US\
• Make sure that you have already made a backup copy of the “Pages” folder.
• Right-click on the file “RDWAStrings.xml” and select ‘Edit’.
• Make changes as desired to reflect what you want displayed;
  • PageTitle, line 3
  • HeadingRDWA, line 10
  • HeadingApplicationName, line 11
  • Help, line 12

• Reload the page in your browser to view the change.
  • Note: Chrome based browsers like to cache these… Use a private browsing tab, or flush your browser cache if the changes are not appearing after reloading the page.

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Remove ‘Help’ Link

This will remove the ‘Help’ link on the RDWeb login page that links to this MS documentation.

• Now open the folder: %windir%\Web\RDWeb\Pages\
• Make sure that you have already made a backup copy of the “Pages” folder.
• Right-click on the file “site.xsl” and select ‘Edit’.
• Press ‘Ctrl+G’ and enter 150, to go to line 150
• Select and then delete lines 150-158.

• Open IIS and restart the service.
• Reload the page in your browser to view the change.

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Change the Server Logo on Login Page

You can remove the “Server 2012” or “Server 2016” or “Server 2019” logo that is on the login page. I like to replace it with a 1px-by-1px transparent image. It won’t do much overall… But perhaps it’ll make a malicious person have to work a tad bit harder to determine what you’re OS you are on.

• Replace the following image: %windir%\web\rdweb\pages\images\WS_h_c.png

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Change the Microsoft Logo on Login Page

You can remove the “Microsoft” logo that is on the login page. I like to replace it with a 1px-by-1px transparent image. It doesn’t hurt anything being there, but if you’re cleaning up and editing the branding of your site, why would you leave this logo on it?

• Replace the following image: %windir%\web\rdweb\pages\images\mslogo_black.png

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If I come across other customization tips I’ll add them here…