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Microsoft's Windows 10 Remote Desktop apps for PCs and mobile starts rolling out

The Windows 10 version of Microsoft's Remote Desktop app for PCs, tablets and mobile devices allows users to access apps remotely from their Windows PCs.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

Microsoft is removing the "preview" tag from its Windows 10 versions of its Remote Desktop application for PCs, tablets and Windows Phones.

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Remote Desktop allows users to connect to remote Windows PCs and access resources from those machines. However, client-access licenses and supporting back-end infrastructure are required to in order to use Remote Desktop.

The new Remote Desktop apps are Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications, Microsoft officials noted in a May 26 blog post announcing the rollout of the new version of the application. The rollout will happen gradually over the next couple of weeks, today's post notes, with the new Windows 10 versions replacing the existing 8.1 versions over time.

The Windows Phone version of the new Remote Desktop app is especially interesting, given it supports Continuum. With the new Remote Desktop version, users can access their full versions of Office and other existing Win32 commercial and line-of-business apps, not just Universal Windows Platform apps for use on large screen monitors.

Users who already have the 8.1 version of Remote Desktop installed will see a number, but not all, of their settings preserved when they move to the new Windows 10 version. There also are a number of existing 8.1 features that are not yet supported in the Windows 10 version, including multiple simultaneous connections, printer and smartcard redirection and more.

Users are able to install the existing Windows 8.1 and new Windows 10 versions of the Remote Desktop apps side-by-side.

In other Windows news, Microsoft made available a new test build of Windows 10 for PCs to its Fast Ring Insider testers today. That build, 14352, includes a number of feature tweaks to Cortana, Windows Ink and set-up, plus a number of fixes.

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