in this video I show you how to
configure email discovery for Windows
virtual desktop clients
hello I'm Travis and this is Ciraltos
so far I primarily use the web client
when connecting to Windows virtual
desktop in my videos I started working
with different remote desktop clients
recently and realized that configuring
the client with an email address is much
easier than adding a URL in this video
I'm going to walk through setting up
email discovery for the remote desktop
clients before that please subscribe
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new content all of this can be done
while maintaining social distancing
email discovery has been around for some
time with Windows Remote Desktop
Services if you haven't used it before
here's how it works the remote desktop
client needs URL to identify the
location of a feed the feed is a list of
Remote Desktop resources available from
the organization with Windows Remote
Desktop Services that URL was unique for
each organization Windows virtual
desktop makes this much easier everyone
uses the same URL you can share the URL
with end-users but who are we kidding
that would be difficult to manage
there's no way I'd remember it email
discovery makes configuring the client
much easier email discovery works by
adding a text record to your
organization's DNS this is a value that
points to the Windows virtual desktop
feed the user enters their email address
into the remote desktop client instead
of a URL the client checks DNS for the
email domain to see if the feed URL
value exists if it does the client uses
that URL in DNS to locate the Windows or
virtual desktop feed for email feed
discovery to work a text record has to
be added to DNS the values for that text
record are on the screen there's a host
record that's what the client will
search for the text record that's the
feed URL and a time-to-live value the
time to live can be higher than 300 if
needed
also the URL listed on the screen is for
the spring update version
Windows virtual desktop keep in mind
that an entry has to be added to the
email domain so if the email address for
the user is user one at Sur all dos com
the entry has to be added to these or
all those com DNS servers and the user
doesn't really need an email address for
this to work the remote desktop client
just needs the domain name to find the
text record you could tell the users to
use their UPN but for most users and
email address is easier to communicate
also it's common to use different
internal and external DNS servers if
that's the case add the record to both
DNS environments let's get started
in the demo I'm going to walk through
setting the external DNS entry in
network solutions DNS services and then
do the same for my internal Windows DNS
once that's finished we'll test it you
will need admin rights to whatever
system host DNS to make these changes
let's start the demo let's begin let's
start with the remote desktop client and
try to add my feed notice that there's a
subscribe option where users can just
sign in not all remote desktop clients
have that right now say for iOS for
example I'm going to use the subscribe
with URL also some versions of the
remote desktop client have the option to
add a computer or workspace use the add
workspace for this so I could add that
URL if I wanted to but that's not what
this video is about so if I add a user's
email address
you'll notice it says I can't find a
workspace associated with this email
address that's what we're gonna fix also
I want to point out way up here in the
corner there's an orange icon for remote
desktop the remote desktop version I'm
using has this orange icon not the
version from the Microsoft app store
with the blue icon that one doesn't work
with Windows virtual desktop let's set
up DNS next Here I am in network
solutions DNS settings now there's a lot
of different options for external DNS
you could host it with Windows you could
host it through network solutions
GoDaddy every place is going to be a
little bit different in how this is done
so I'm just going to run through this as
an example
and I'm going to go to manage advanced
DNS records and if you have problems
finding how to do this check their help
section and see how to add a text record
in their DNS server they're all kind of
similar so I'm going to add it here and
notice also I'm using sir Altos net
knots for Altos comm it's because
there's a delay and I want to give this
video done in one day so I already added
this setting to sir Altos comm but we're
gonna come in and show how to do it on a
different domain so here is my text
record and I'm going to edit text
records and here's where I'm gonna add a
text record first I'll add the host and
that's underscore MS our ABC now I can
try to set the time to live to 300 which
is what microsoft recommends but it's
not going to take it I'll try anyway and
then I'm gonna add this URL that's the
URL to the Windows virtual desktop feed
I'll click continue okay and it says the
the smallest amount we can go is 3600 so
this is the time that DNS servers hold
this information and the cache before it
does a new lookup so it really doesn't
matter I'll just add 3600 and move on
with our lives here it says it can take
up to 24 hours for the update to
replicate throughout the whole interwebs
so I'm gonna save changes and here it
says 24 to 48 normally it only takes you
know half an hour or so but it all
depends on where you're updating it and
where you're coming from that is how you
add a text record for the email feed
through network solutions and any other
external DNS provider like this should
be pretty similar we can do a test quick
by opening the command prompt and I'll
run an NS look up against the type text
for that record we just added so that
didn't take long at all and if you're
lucky enough it won't take yours long at
all either
but it could
even longer that all depends on the
system you're working on the actual
replication time is typically out of our
control okay let's set up internal DNS
and this assumes that your internal DNS
is Windows ad DNS if not you'll need to
find your DNS admin and have them help
you if you're the DNS admin and that
shouldn't be a problem so I'm gonna find
my zone which is sur Altos comm right
click other new records I'm gonna scroll
down to text create record and the name
will be that host name and the text will
be the feed URL I'll click OK and done
then at the bottom here we can see it
was added if I hop over to a command
prompt I'm gonna do an MS lookup for
that same record but at Sur Altos com
and again this is testing my internal
DNS there it is so the records coming
back we're just gonna minimize this here
we are back at the external command
prompt I'm gonna run the same command
again but this time against comm just to
make sure it's there so what I'm doing
here is I don't have a Windows virtual
desktop at sir Altos net Setzer Altos de
comm I was just using that as an example
of how to add an external DNS record for
this demo but they're both listed now so
let's go back to the client I'm gonna
subscribe with the URL and this time I'm
going to add my email address and you
can see it's finding that workspace URL
so now I'll click Next and I'll sign in
and I'm gonna uncheck this and there we
go it found my workspace that's it for
the demo that's how we setup Windows
virtual desktop email feed discovery on
an internal and external domain I hope
that makes it easier for your users to
access Windows virtual desktop if so
please subscribe like and all that jazz
thanks for watching
