Microsoft says RDSH is coming to a Server 2019 preview soon. (Update: It's back!)
There’s still speculation about multi-user Windows 10, though.
(This article was originally published on April 18, 2018. It was updated and republished on April 25, 2018. Scroll to the end for the updates.)
In March, Brian Madden (writing as an independent freelance contributor prior to his recent move to VMware) caused a bit of a stir when he wrote about the absence of the Remote Desktop Session Host role in a preview of Windows Server 2019.
Subsequently, there was a bit of back and forth, with a few people unofficially asserting that RDS was not dead.
On April 17, the rumors were put to rest when my TechTarget colleague Alyssa Provazza reported that Microsoft stated that RDSH would return to a future Server 2019 preview.
A Microsoft spokesperson said: “The RDSH role will be in the preview build available for Insiders soon. Windows Server 2019 will have the [Remote Desktop Services] roles like in Windows Server 2016.” This confirmed a tweet by Scott Manchester, Group Manager for RDS as Microsoft.
However, Microsoft has not commented on a companion rumor, that Windows 10 will have its own multi-user capabilities. Mary Jo Foley also mentioned this in a tweet yesterday, saying that her sources still say that Windows 10 client may get a subset of RDS capabilities, too.
Anyway, here it is, in case you missed it. There’s not too much else to say about this for the moment. We don’t know what went on behind the scenes and why the RDSH role went away (though we do have to confirm that it actually comes back in a future preview), but we’ll stay tuned.
Update, April 25: It's now officially back!
The RDSH role re-emerged in the Windows Server 2019 LTSC Preview Build 17650. According to a post on the official Windows Blog, the role was missing in earlier previews because of a bug.
There's still a bit of room for conspiracy theories, though: If RDSH was missing because of a bug, why not list it as a known issue when the first preview came out? Plus, the door is still open for multi-user Windows 10. Anyway, we can consider the main issue to be settled for now.
