Microsoft is phasing out its Remote Desktop app in May
The Remote Desktop app for Windows is (almost) dead; long live the Windows app. Microsoft said on Monday that its legacy Remote Desktop client, which has already been replaced on other platforms, will no longer be supported on Windows after May 27, 2025. But you aren't losing any functionality here. You can still do tech support for your parents using built-in Windows functionality or the modern Windows app, which is somehow both the simplest and most confusing naming convention Microsoft's marketing team could have mustered.
"Starting May 27, 2025, the Remote Desktop app for Windows from the Microsoft Store will no longer be supported or available for download and installation," Microsoft's Hilary Braun wrote on its Windows IT Pro Blog. "Users must transition to Windows App to ensure continued access to Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop and Microsoft Dev Box."
The company says connections to Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop and Microsoft Dev Box via the Remote Desktop app from the Microsoft Store will be blocked in the Remote Desktop app on the app's expiration date of May 27. For all other users, it will continue working but will no longer be supported.
Increasing the confusion, Windows has a built-in Remote Desktop Connection app that will remain the only way to use Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connections after May 27. But Microsoft will eventually incorporate that into the Windows app.
As Thurrot.com notes, Microsoft warned that it would eventually replace the Remote Desktop with the Windows app when the operating system's namesake app launched last fall. The new app even arrived as an update to the Remote Desktop client on Apple's App Store.
As for the, uh, interestingly named Windows app, the company likely chose that branding because it wants to move Windows increasingly to the cloud. Its Windows 365 service, introduced in 2021, even lets you stream a virtual version of the OS from any device. So, calling the unified app used to access cloud and remote PCs "Windows app" seems maybe slightly less bizarre from that angle.
Still, a Reddit thread from the Windows app's September launch held some entertaining reactions from the company's fans. "Microsoft needs to collect all the staff responsible for naming or renaming their products in the past 15 years and shoot them into the sun," u/AlignedHurdle posted. Meanwhile, u/Shoddy_Eye7866 seized an opportunity to use the Xzibit meme: "Yo dawg, I heard you like Windows, so I took Windows App and put in your Windows so you can Windows while you Windows."
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They console themselves that they follow Magnificent Seven drizzle and can speak about Tesla with the best of them. In order to help the waning tide of viewers to stay with us, the new manifesto is to learn the "great unwashed" of stock stories that are under $100 billion in market cap that are truly terrific. There are investors who want to own Nvidia or the next Nvidia, and by golly, we better help find them, or we might as well cut the cord, too. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
