Enable Remote Audio and Microphone in RDP/RDS Session

In this article, we’ll show you how to configure microphone and audio redirection in a Remote Desktop (RDP) session.

By default, when using Windows Remote Desktop, you cannot use your local microphone to record sound in programs running on the remote computer in a terminal session (RDP/RDS). If you need to redirect your local microphone device to an app (Teams, Skype, etc.) installed on a Remote Desktop host, you need to check the settings on both the client and server-side.

If you open the Recording tab in the Sound settings on the Remote Desktop computer, you will most likely see the caption:

No audio devices are installed

Enable Audio Device Redirecting on RDP (RDS) Computer

First, you need to configure the remote Windows computer so that redirected audio devices work correctly in a Remote Desktop session.

1. Check that the Windows Audio service is installed and running on both the RDP server and client. Also, check that the Remote Desktop Services UserMode Port Redirector (UmRdpService) service is running. You can use PowerShell to check that the service is running:

   Get-Service Audiosrv, UmRdpService

   

   Audiosrv service is disabled by default on Windows Server.
2. Open the Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc), go to the following GPO section Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Remote Desktop Services -> Remote Desktop Session Host. Enable two GPO options ‘Allow audio and video playback redirection‘ and ‘Allow audio recording redirection‘. Then change the ‘Do not allow redirection of supported Plug and Play devices‘ policy value to Disabled. Update the GPO settings with the command:

   gpupdate /force

   Restart the TermService (Remote Desktop Services) service;

How to Enable Microphone in RDP/RDS Session?

At this point, you will need to check the settings on your RDP client and enable the microphone redirection feature.

If you are using the built-in mstsc.exe client (Remote Desktop Connection) to connect to RDP, and check its settings. Click on the Show Options button, navigate to the Local Resources tab, and click on the Settings button in the Remote audio section. Change from “Do not record” to “Record from this computer” in Remote audio recording.

If after that sound appears in the RDP session, but the sound recording doesn’t work, create a DWORD parameter named fDisableAudioCapture with a value of 0 under the registry key HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp

Now connect to the Remote Desktop. Open the Sound item in the Control Panel, go to the Recording tab, and make sure that the Remote Audio device is selected by default for sound recording.

A notification may appear when you try to open the Sound settings menu:

Audio
Your privacy settings blocked access to the microphone.

This is a known issue with Windows Server 2019 RDS where the remote audio works fine, but the recording device (microphone) does not work. This is because the server’s default user profile privacy settings prevent applications from using the microphone.

In this case, go to Settings -> Privacy -> Microphone and enable the “Allow applications to access your microphone” option.

If the application is published as a RemoteApp on Windows Server RDS, you will need to edit the .rdp file used to connect. Add the following lines to this file:

audiocapturemode:i:1
audiomode:i:0

• Audiocapturemode = 1 – enables audio recording from a local microphone and redirects it to the remote session
• Audiomode = 0 – play sounds from RDP session on local computer

After that, the redirected microphone device will become available both in RDP sessions and in RemoteApps. Don’t forget to select this Remote Audio microphone as the main audio source in your applications on the RDP host.

Enable Audio Redirection over Remote Desktop on Windows

Run your RDP client (mstsc.exe). Navigate to the Advanced -> Remote Audio -> Settings tab.

There are three modes available in the Remote Audio Playback section:

• Play on this computer
• Do not play
• Play on remote computer

If you want to play the audio from the RDS host on your local computer, select the first option.

Connect to your Remote Desktop host. Open the sound settings (Control Panel -> Hardware -> Sound).

If the Playback tab shows No audio device installed, check that the Windows Audio service is running on the remote host.

Open Device Manager and check that there is an active Remote Audio device in the Audio inputs and outputs section.

The Remote Audio device should be selected by default in the Sound Control Panel if everything is configured correctly.

To improve audio quality, enable the GPO option Limit audio playback quality and set Audio Quality = High.

If you are using virtual machines, RDSH Remote Apps, VMware Horizon, or Citrix ICA terminal solutions, you will need to disable the Audio Sandbox parameter in the registry for sound to work correctly in Chromium-based browsers.

• For Google Chrome:[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome]"AudioSandboxEnabled"=dword:00000000
• For Microsoft Edge:
  [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge]"AudioSandboxEnabled"=dword:00000000