Win RDP

Built for speed. Designed for Linux.

Connect to Windows with a Rust-powered remote desktop client built on IronRDP. Win RDP brings experimental reliable UDP v1, v2, and v3 transport support, automatic TCP fallback, and Windows’ graphics pipeline to a native session window, with clipboard, audio, microphone, and printer redirection.

Website · Releases

Early development: check the release notes for tested platforms and known limitations.

What is different about it

UDP v1, v2, and v3, powered by Rust. Win RDP’s IronRDP fork implements experimental reliable UDP transport support alongside TCP:

Label in the app	Protocol	Spec
UDP v1	RDP-UDP, version 1	MS-RDPEUDP
UDP v2	RDP-UDP, version 2	MS-RDPEUDP
UDP v3	RDP-UDP2	MS-RDPEUDP2
TCP	plain RDP	MS-RDPBCGR

The launcher offers version 2 first, the version used in the recorded live Windows tests, and falls back to TCP automatically when UDP cannot be established. Version 3 uses RDP-UDP2; its implementation still needs live-host validation. Graphics (MS-RDPEGFX) are moved onto the UDP tunnel with a Soft-Sync, so frames ride the reliable-UDP path with its own retransmit and ACK-vector machinery.

The RDP engine is IronRDP, a Rust implementation, through a fork that adds the RDP-UDP transport. The MS-RDPEUDP version 1/2 reliable data transfer was upstreamed in Devolutions/IronRDP#1919, merged on 2026-09-10; the fork still carries the graphics-over-tunnel work, the RDP-UDP2 path and the Linux clipboard, printer and audio redirection.

Measured on a clean LAN

A local Windows test host, 1280x720, Task Manager open, 60 s per run, 2026-09-07:

	UDP v2	TCP
frames decoded	426	449
mean fps while the screen changes	20.3	21.3
peak fps	31.5	34.8
decode time per frame	3.9 ms	4.1 ms
tunnel retransmits / reorders	1 / 0	n/a

On a clean LAN the two are at parity: frame rate is bounded by how often the remote screen changes, not by the transport. The UDP transport targets lossy and high-latency links; a performance advantage on those networks has not yet been established by these measurements. To compare on your own network, run the session binary with IRONRDP_UDP=1 IRONRDP_UDP_OFFER=2 and with IRONRDP_UDP=0, then grep session perf in the logs. Set the offer explicitly: on its own, the session binary offers version 3, which the Windows hosts measured here do not answer at all, so the bootstrap times out and both halves of the comparison quietly measure TCP. The launcher already passes WINRDP_UDP_OFFER=2, so installed sessions are unaffected.

Memory, CPU, resize and keypress timings, with a comparison against Remmina, are in docs/PERFORMANCE.md.

The launcher

A native Rust window built with iced: no webview, no JavaScript. Two layouts. The arrows button at the top right switches between them, and so does Settings.

Simple is the default: one small window, the way the Windows client is. Pick a computer or type an address, press Enter. Every desktop opens in its own window.

Full adds a sidebar, search, and a tab for every open desktop. Desktops still open in their own windows.

Passwords are saved only when you tick Remember this password, and then in the desktop's keyring (GNOME Keyring or KWallet, through the Secret Service), never in Win RDP's files. A remembered password that Windows refuses is forgotten, and Edit shows a Forget button while one is saved.

Remembered passwords are bound to the computer's address and account. Passwords saved by older versions without that binding require one fresh sign-in; select Remember this password again to save them in the new format.

Session window

• Windows 11 style connection bar in full screen: pin, restore, close, transport label.
• Resizing the window resizes the remote desktop through Display Control, unless the computer keeps a fixed resolution (Resolution, under the connection options): then the desktop stays that size in any window, even full screen, scaled to fit with black bars.
• Closing asks first, the way mstsc does; the remote session stays signed in.
• Clipboard sharing supports text and images on X11 and Wayland; enable it per computer. Desktop clipboard integration and Windows policy can affect availability.
• Microphone redirection (MS-RDPEAI) and a redirected printer (MS-RDPEPC) are per computer, under Edit. Print jobs go to the local default printer through CUPS, or to ~/Downloads as PostScript when there is no printer.

Windows only opens the microphone channel when its policy allows audio recording redirection (Group Policy: Remote Desktop Session Host, Device and Resource Redirection, "Allow audio recording redirection").

Build

See BUILDING.md for prerequisites. Then:

cargo xtask deb
sudo apt install ./dist/winrdp-next_0.8.3_amd64.deb

The package installs winrdp-next (the launcher) and winrdp-session (one process per desktop) and leaves any other RDP client on the machine alone.

Layout of the repository

Path	What it is
launcher/	winrdp-next, the launcher window (iced): saved computers, settings, and one session process per desktop.
session/	winrdp-session, the IronRDP-based session window.
third_party/ironrdp/	The IronRDP fork with RDP-UDP, the Linux clipboard backend, and the printer backend.
website/	Static release website; download links go to GitHub Releases.

Hosting

Win RDP is a client, but it sets up the host side for you. Settings has a switch, "Accept connections from Windows", that configures GNOME Remote Desktop to mirror the desktop you are signed in to on port 3389, on now and at every sign-in, whether or not Win RDP is running. It also turns off GNOME's headless "Remote Login" mode, which would give Windows a separate login session instead of your screen. Hosting is opt-in: opening the launcher never enables inbound RDP. Enable it explicitly in Settings. Two modes: "Show my screen" mirrors the monitor and needs it on; "Virtual screen" gives the same signed-in session its own screen and works with the monitor off or unplugged. Connections into the machine are TCP; hosting over RDP-UDP is not built yet.

Sharing passwords are passed to grdctl through standard input. If an older GNOME release does not support this, set the sharing password in GNOME's Remote Desktop settings, then refresh Win RDP's Settings.