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How can IT retrieve VDI server configuration information?

IT pros may need to retrieve server configuration information to diagnose problems with their VDI. They can do so in Windows-based deployments with the right PowerShell cmdlets.

Brien Posey
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Published: 08 Jun 2018

When IT professionals are working with virtual desktops, they may need to retrieve key VDI server configuration information to diagnose and resolve problems. Unfortunately, each VDI vendor deploys, manages and diagnoses problems a little differently, so there isn't one standard method for retrieving the configuration information of a VDI server.

Instead, IT professionals must check with their VDI vendor to see what tools are available. In the case of Windows-based VDI servers, there are a number of PowerShell cmdlets IT can use to retrieve VDI server configuration information.

Cmdlets for retrieving VDI configuration information

Get-RDLicenseConfiguration retrieves information about the Remote Desktop Licensing Server. It also shows which remote desktop licensing mode the VDI server uses.

Get-RDRemoteApp isn't technically a server configuration cmdlet, but it is useful nonetheless. The cmdlet lists the remote apps IT has provisioned for the remote desktop deployment or for a given collection of remote desktops.

Get-RDServer shows IT which servers it provisioned for use as a part of the organization's VDI. It's helpful in Windows-based VDI deployments because they almost always consist of multiple remote desktop servers.

Occasionally, remote desktop problems stem from an expired or misconfigured certificate.

Get-RDVirtualDesktopConcurrency shows IT the maximum number of virtual desktops it can create simultaneously. This comes in handy in large deployments where IT rarely provisions new remote desktops one at a time. If IT creates too many remote desktops simultaneously, it can bog down the system.

Get-RDVirtualDesktopCollectionConfiguration shows IT the configuration settings for a group of remote desktops known as a collection. For example, IT can see the remote display protocol settings for the virtual desktops in the collection, the name of the collection, the connection broker the collection uses, the user profile disk settings and even the Active Directory user groups that can use the collection.

This cmdlet won't show the names of the remote desktops that are part of the collection, however. For that, IT must use the Get-RDVirtualDesktopCollection cmdlet.

Get-RDCertificate allows IT to see which certificate the VDI server is using. This can be important because, occasionally, remote desktop problems stem from an expired or misconfigured certificate.

Two more cmdlets that are worth knowing are Get-RDDeploymentGatewayConfiguration and Get-RDConnectionBrokerHighAvailability. These cmdlets retrieve information about the gateway settings and about high availability settings for the connection broker.

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