The Remote Desktop app for Windows is (almost) dead. On Monday, Microsoft announced that the 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 don’t lose any functionality. You can still provide technical support to your parents using the built-in Windows features or the modern Windows app, which for some reason has the simplest and yet most confusing name Microsoft’s marketing team could come up with.
“Starting May 27, 2025, the Windows Remote Desktop app from the Microsoft Store will no longer be supported or available for download and installation,” Microsoft’s Hilary Braun wrote in her Windows IT Pro Blog. “Users should switch to Windows App to ensure continued access to Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Microsoft Dev Box.”
The company says that connectivity to Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Microsoft Dev Box through the Remote Desktop app from the Microsoft Store will be blocked in the Remote Desktop app after the app expires on May 27. For all other users, it will continue to work, but will no longer be supported.
To add to 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 include this feature in the Windows app.
According to Thurrot.com, Microsoft warned that it would eventually replace the remote desktop with a Windows application when it launched the operating system application of the same name last fall. The new program even appeared as an update for the Remote Desktop client in the Apple App Store.
As for the curiously named Windows app, the company probably chose the name because it wants to move Windows more and more to the cloud. Its Windows 365 service, introduced in 2021, even allows you to stream a virtual version of the OS from any device. So, calling a unified app used to access cloud and remote computers a “Windows app” from this perspective seems perhaps a little less gimmicky.
Nevertheless, the Reddit post about the September launch of the Windows app drew some interesting reactions from the company’s fans. “Microsoft needs to round up all the employees responsible for naming or renaming their products over the past 15 years and shoot them in the sun,” wrote u/AlignedHurdle. Meanwhile, u/Shoddy_Eye7866 took the opportunity to use the Xzibit meme: “Yo, man, I heard you like Windows, so I took the Windows App and put it on your Windows so you can use Windows while you use Windows.”
