Windows App remote PC connections went generally available on Windows on October 7, 2026, and the timing matters more than the feature itself. Microsoft has spent the last year and a half consolidating its remote access clients into Windows App, and this release closes one of the last gaps: connecting to an ordinary PC by name or IP address, without a work or school account tied to the session, the way the official Windows IT Pro Blog announcement describes it.
That sounds like it should settle a question sysadmins have been fielding since the old Store “Remote Desktop” app disappeared: which client do I tell people to use now? It doesn’t, entirely, because Windows App still isn’t a replacement for everything mstsc.exe does. Three different tools now cover remote access depending on what’s being connected to, and mixing them up is where the support tickets come from.
What Windows App Remote PC Connections Actually Changed
The feature is “remote PC connections” inside Windows App: pointing the app at a PC by hostname or IP address and connecting to it directly, the same basic scenario mstsc.exe has handled for two decades. What’s new is that it now lives inside Windows App alongside the client’s existing Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Dev Box connections, and it works without signing in with a Microsoft Entra work or school account first.
That last part is the actual change. Windows App’s other connection types assume an organizational identity before you get anywhere. Windows App remote PC connections authenticate against the target machine’s own local or domain accounts instead, the same way RDP always has, which is what makes this usable for the plain point-to-point scenario rather than only the managed-identity ones Windows App was built around.
Three Tools, Not One
This is the part worth getting straight before rolling anything out, because all three tools look like they do the same thing from a distance.
The old Store “Remote Desktop” app
Microsoft pulled it from the Microsoft Store on May 27, 2025, and blocked its ability to make new cloud connections entirely on September 30, 2025. If a help article or an old internal wiki page still points people at this app, that link needs updating, not just a note that it’s “being replaced.”
mstsc.exe, the built-in Remote Desktop Connection client, was never retired and isn’t going anywhere. It remains the recommended tool for Remote Desktop Services, session hosts, and RemoteApp scenarios. Windows App does not reach RDS session collections or RemoteApp programs at all right now, so for that specific workload, mstsc.exe is still the answer, not a stopgap.
Windows App is the unified client Microsoft wants everything else to move to. Before this release, that meant Windows 365 Cloud PCs, Azure Virtual Desktop, Microsoft Dev Box, and (depending on tenant configuration) Microsoft 365 remote app access. Windows App remote PC connections extend that same client to plain physical and virtual machines by name or IP, closing the gap for people who just need “my desktop at the office” without a managed service sitting in front of it. For a related angle on managing remote endpoints without a user present, see how Intune’s remote help works for unattended Windows devices.
So the practical split is: RDS and RemoteApp stay on mstsc.exe, everything Microsoft already migrated to Windows App stays there, and the new “connect to one PC directly” scenario can now go either way. Pick mstsc.exe for a quick one-off from a machine that already has it, and Windows App remote PC connections for anyone who’s going to be juggling this alongside Cloud PC or AVD connections in the same client.
Setting Up a Remote PC Connection
Setting up a Windows App remote PC connection takes a few more steps than opening mstsc.exe, mostly because the target machine needs Remote Desktop turned on before anything else works:
- On the PC you want to connect to, go to Settings > System > Remote Desktop and turn it on.
- If the connecting user isn’t an administrator on that machine, add their account to the local Remote Desktop Users group. Administrators can connect without this step; standard users cannot connect at all without being added to that group first.
- Install or update Windows App from the Microsoft Store on the device you’re connecting from.
- In Windows App, select Add, then enter the target PC’s name or IP address.
- Choose Add to save the connection for later, or Add and Connect to connect immediately.
Authentication at this point uses whatever credentials the target machine actually accepts, local account or domain account, exactly as it would through mstsc.exe. There’s no Entra ID step inserted into Windows App remote PC connections.
Security Defaults Worth Checking
Local resource redirection, drive, clipboard, and printer redirection between the connecting device and the remote session, is off by default for Windows App remote PC connections. That’s a safer starting posture than some environments are used to from mstsc.exe, where redirection settings vary by what was configured last. Confirm what’s actually enabled before assuming parity with an existing RDP setup, rather than assuming it matches.
The authentication model is worth repeating here because it affects how access reviews should treat this feature: a remote PC connection is only as secure as the local or domain account it authenticates against, and the Remote Desktop Users group membership on each target machine. Entra Conditional Access policies that gate other Windows App connection types (Cloud PC, AVD) don’t apply to this one the same way, since there’s no Entra sign-in in the authentication path for a plain remote PC connection.
Deploying Windows App Across a Fleet
Windows App is deployable through Intune like any other Store app, which matters once Windows App remote PC connections turn this into something more than a few people connecting to their own desktops manually. For the mobile versions of Windows App specifically, Intune App Protection Policies add a layer that doesn’t exist for the desktop client: clipboard restrictions between Windows App and other apps on the device, and a device compliance check that can block the app from connecting at all if the device fails an antivirus or compliance requirement.
Worth deciding deliberately rather than leaving on defaults: whether Windows App remote PC connections should be available to personal, unmanaged devices at all, given that this connection type doesn’t carry the same Entra-based Conditional Access controls as Windows App’s other connection types. Scoping it to managed devices through whatever device-based Conditional Access or compliance policy the tenant already uses is the straightforward way to close that gap.
