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Use RDP Wrapper Library with latest Windows 10 / Server OS Versions
#1
Use RDP Wrapper Library with latest Windows 10 / Server OS Versions


Howdy Post4VPS Staff & Community

Before I start writing about the main subject of today's guide I will start off with explaining what the "RDP Wrapper" library actually is:
Quote:Imagine you are a normal Windows user and your computer came with Windows 10 Home preinstalled. Now you might know that the Windows 10 Home edition is very limited in many aspects such as a lot less control over the system settings (e.g. updates are forced and cannot be turned off). Another locked down feature is the absolute lack of the remote desktop feature / the remote desktop server. That means you cannot connect to your computer remotely in your network from e.g. a tablet or something similar.

Such a feature, while not many normal users may use it, is actually a very useful feature. So for those who are very interested in this feature... what should these people do? The next higher up version that comes with the remote desktop feature / server is Windows 10 Pro. Would you be willing to go out and buy a Windows 10 Pro license? Of course you could get a cheap license from some random or weird site. You don't have to do this! It could especially be a dangerous scam / rip off.

Here is where the "RDP Wrapper" library comes into play. It is a RDP library with a lot of modifications and tweaks. You can install RDP Wrapper on your Windows 10 Home computer to get back the Windows remote desktop feature / server for free. Not only that - it also supports concurrent RDP sessions which is usually only a premium Windows Server feature (2 sessions by default and many more with the expensive RDS-CAL licenses). RDP Wrapper library can also be used on Windows Server products to unlock more than 2 concurrent RDP sessions for free (grey area subject). It is compatible from Windows Vista to Windows 10.

Above was a little explanation about the RDP Wrapper library. Now let's talk about the subject of this guide. The RDP Wrapper is no longer in development and has no support since the end of 2018. That means that newer Windows 10 Version that came out after 2018 aren't really supported or rather said the RDP Wrapper library doesn't properly work on newer / latest Windows 10 builds. This guide will show you how to fix this issue and be able to use the RDP Wrapper library on the latest Windows 10 / Server builds (e.g. Windows 10 2009 Home or Windows Server 2019).

The actual constellation / my setup: Windows 10 Home Build 20H2 (2009) with a license inside a Hyper-V VM with 2 CPU Cores, 4 GB RAM and a 64 GB vSSD. It doesn't matter whether your computer is physical or virtual. I'm just using a virtual system because I don't have a device with Windows 10 Home in physical form. Due to the limited feature set of Windows 10 Home RDP is not available. I however want to use RDP to access the VM remotely from my tablet to do some stuff without always being at my computer. I'm going to install RDP Wrapper and fix it up to work on my setup.

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Disclaimer: You are performing all actions at your own risks. You cannot make me responsible for anything that happens. I hold no responsibility for the actions performed by you with this guide. This is solely for educational and non commerical use only! The legality of the subject of this guide is not clearly defined. See here for more information.



Let's get started. Make sure you have administrative rights / access on your machine as this level of access is required to perform actions in this guide.


Step #1

Open your web browser, go to https://github.com/stascorp/rdpwrap/releases and download the latest version of RDP Wrapper (currently and as of 2018 it is version 1.6.2). Choose the .zip file version of the release as the .MSI installer will not work at all on latest Windows 10 / Server builds.

Or click this link to download the .zip file directly from the release page.

Also download this file.


Step #2

Press the Windows key and the R key at the same time. In the small "Run" window type in the following text and hit the ENTER key:
%ProgramFiles%

The Windows explorer will open up. Inside the directory that opened up create a folder called "RDP Wrapper". Do not use another path than %ProgramFiles%\RDP Wrapper!

Full path should normally be "C:\Program Files\RDP Wrapper".

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Step #3

Extract the content of the RDP Wrapper .zip file into the RDP Wrapper folder you have created.

Additionally extract the content of the autoupdate.zip file that you have downloaded into the RDP Wrapper folder.

The RDP Wrapper folder should look like below:
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Step #4

Open the "Helper" folder in the RDP Wrapper folder and run "autoupdate__enable_autorun_on_startup.bat" as an administrator (right click the .bat file and click on "Run as Administrator").

If a small and blue Windows protection window opens click on "More info" and then on the "Run anyway" button to run the .bat file. Alternatively you can disable Windows smart screen to get rid of this blue Windows protection windows.

A CMD window will open up. Once its done you will see a message saying to press any key to close the window. Just press any key to close that windows.

Set in your Antivirus an exclusion for the folder "%ProgramFiles%\RDP Wrapper" to prevent the deletion of RDP Wrapper files.


Step #5

After the step above run "autoupdate.bat" inside the RDP Wrapper folder as an administrator (right click the bat file and click on "Run as Administrator").

If a small and blue Windows protection window opens click on "More info" and then on the "Run anyway" button to run the .bat file. Alternatively you can disable Windows smart screen to get rid of this blue Windows protection windows.

A CMD window will open up. It will perform a lot of tasks and install fixes for the RDP Wrapper library 1.6.2 that we downloaded. Once everything is finished the CMD window will close.

After that you can run the "RDPConf.exe" file in the RDP Wrapper folder to see whether the RDP Wrapper library was installed and is working properly. Below an example of a working RDP Wrapper:
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Now you can verify that RDP is working on your Windows 10 Home computer by using a different device with a RDP client and typing in the IP address of your Windows 10 Home computer. If everything works you will be connect to your computer via RDP and you can login with your user.

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As you can see I'm connected to my Windows 10 Home VM. Windows still says that RDP is not available because of Windows 10 Home but we're connected via RDP. We have successfully enable RDP on our Windows 10 Home computer.

That's it! Couldn't be easier, right? You can configure RDP Wrapper further by editing the rdpwrapper.ini file inside the RDP Wrapper folder. WARNING: You shouldn't touch the file if you don't know what you are doing. Some options can be guessed easily by the names but others aren't that easy to understand and can break RDP on your system.
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Messages In This Thread
Use RDP Wrapper Library with latest Windows 10 / Server OS Versions - by Mashiro - 10-31-2020, 08:28 PM


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