Policy
Use hardware graphics adapters for all Remote Desktop Services sessions
Microsoft Windows
Policy overview
Key metadata and intent for this policy.
Supported OS tags: Windows10, Windows10RT, Windows11, Windows8, Windows81, WindowsRT, WindowsRT81, WindowsServer2012, WindowsServer2012R2, WindowsServer2016
This policy setting enables system administrators to change the graphics rendering for all Remote Desktop Services sessions. If you enable this policy setting, all Remote Desktop Services sessions use the hardware graphics renderer instead of the Microsoft Basic Render Driver as the default adapter. If you disable this policy setting, all Remote Desktop Services sessions use the Microsoft Basic Render Driver as the default adapter. If you do not configure this policy setting, Remote Desktop Services sessions on the RD Session Host server use the Microsoft Basic Render Driver as the default adapter. In all other cases, Remote Desktop Services sessions use the hardware graphics renderer by default. NOTE: The policy setting enables load-balancing of graphics processing units (GPU) on a computer with more than one GPU installed. The GPU configuration of the local session is not affected by this policy setting.
Registry values
How enabled and disabled states update the registry.
| Scope | Registry location | Type | Enabled value | Disabled value | Copy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Computer | Path SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services Value name bEnumerateHWBeforeSW | REG_DWORD | HKLM 1 | HKLM 0 |
Policy elements
Inputs and configuration options exposed by this policy.
This policy has no additional user input fields.