All Answers

I assume that you are talking about the user’s WSE RemoteApp session being locked after being idle for 10 minutes (which is the default timeout setting for all remote connections in Windows Server 2012/2012 R2/2016). If so, then the user can easily change this behavior for themselves from within their WSE RemoteApp session by simply right-clicking on the WSE RemoteApp Launcher notification area icon (which is located in the Taskbar down by their system clock), and selecting Settings -> Lock after from the context menu that appears. From there they can choose to increase the timeout value (or completely disable it by setting the value to “Never“).

NOTE: If the user is running their WSE RemoteApp session from the Microsoft Remote Desktop app on a smartphone, tablet, etc. (i.e. from a device that doesn’t have the Windows Taskbar), then they can still access the Settings context menu by simply opening up the main WSE RemoteApp Launcher window and then clicking (tapping) on the large icon that’s located up in the top left-hand corner of the launcher window. Doing that will display the launcher window’s context menu (i.e. the exact same context menu that displays whenever you right-click on the add-in’s Windows Taskbar notification icon).

Windows Server Essentials works just fine with a dynamic IP address as long as you have its Anywhere Access/Remote Web Access feature configured correctly. As for our products, they use the server’s built-in Remote Web Access functionality in order to remotely connect to your server, and so as long as Remote Web Access is properly configured on your server, then they will also work just fine with a dynamic IP address.

Your best bet here is to configure Remote Web Access on your server using the Microsoft personalized YourDomainPrefix.remotewebaccess.com domain name offering seeing as the domain name, the trusted SSL certificate, and the dynamic DNS functionality (which keeps your Internet domain name properly synced up to your server’s dynamic IP address) are then automatically setup and managed for you completely free of charge and hassle. For more information see:

Understand Microsoft personalized domain names

From WSE RemoteApp’s perspective, “multiple simultaneous connections” refers to more than two of your users being able to sign in, and use, a WSE RemoteApp session at exactly the same time. For example, if you have the 5 user “Basic Edition” of WSE RemoteApp, and you have allowed access to five different users via the “WSE RemoteApp” page in the server Dashboard, then all five of those users can sign in to their own WSE RemoteApp session (at exactly the same time) when you have the (optional/unsupported) multiple simultaneous connections feature enabled. Each of those five users could then run the exact same published RemoteApp program (at exactly the same time) from their very own WSE RemoteApp session (such as a LOB application, Word, Excel, Outlook, etc., etc.).

The “Launchpad sign in required” prompt is only displayed if the add-in cannot connect to its provider service that is running over on the server. The most typical scenario for that happening is if the user hasn’t signed in to the Launchpad yet (hence the prompt to sign in to the Launchpad). However, if you’ve already successfully signed in to the Launchpad (and are not just using it in “offline” mode), then something else must be preventing the add-in from being able to access/communicate with its provider service that’s running over on the server…

– Have you tried rebooting the client computer (just to see if that shakes things loose for you)?

– Is the client computer domain joined to the server? If not, are you using a local account or a Microsoft account when you sign in to the client computer?

If you’re using a local account, then make sure that the user name and password that you’re using to sign in to the client computer exactly matches the user name and password of one of the user accounts that you have set up over in the server Dashboard application (as doing so will allow the Launchpad to automatically sign in to the server as that particular user account).

As for your other problem… You must have QuickBooks running in its “multi-user” mode (i.e. from the QuickBooks “File” menu, select “Switch to Multi-user Mode“), and have a multiple user license (that you purchased) from Intuit in order for more than one user to be able to access the exact same company file (at exactly the same time). That behavior has nothing to do with WHS/WSE QuickBooks / WHS/WSE RemoteApp, but is simply a licensing limitation/requirement of QuickBooks itself.

For more information see:

About multi-user QuickBooks

All of our products have a fully functional 21-day evaluation period. However, some features (such as the “RADC web feeds” and “multiple simultaneous connections” features) are not available during the evaluation period in order to protect our intellectual property. The only way to use those features is to purchase a license for the product I’m afraid.

That being said… We do have a no-questions-asked 30 day refund policy on all of our products if you are not completely satisfied with them. Therefore, you could always purchase a license for the product you are currently evaluating, and if you find that the above mentioned features do not work to your satisfaction, then you can request a full refund for the product (as long as you do so within 30 days of the original purchase date). See the “Refunds and Exchanges” section of out Policy page for further details.

In addition, you can also purchase a lower edition of the product (in order to save money while you are evaluating the above mentioned features), and then move up to a higher edition after you have determined that the product, and all of its features, are working satisfactorily for you. See the “Higher Editions” section of our Policy page for further details.

Lastly, the “Remote Web Access” feature of our products (which allows you to access them from within the server’s built-in Remote Web Access website) works just fine during the 21-day evaluation period. It’s the “RADC web feeds” feature (which allows you to access them from Mac, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices) that does not.

See the following “How To” article for step-by-step instructions on how to enable access to your local computer’s drives from all of our products:

Enable Access To Local Computer’s Drives

Or, if you’re using Windows Home Server 2011, see:

Enable Access To Local Computer’s Drives

Please try the following to see if it helps resolve the issue for you:

1) Start a standard Remote Desktop Connection to your server and sign in as an administrator.

2) Once you are at the administrator’s desktop, open the following folder:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\Data\addins

NOTE: The “ProgramData” folder is a hidden system folder, and so you’ll need to enable the viewing of hidden files and folders in order for you to be able to see its contents. That can be done using the “Folder Options” Control Panel applet (via its “View” tab). If you need the exact steps on how to do that, just let me know.

3) In the “packages” subfolder, delete the file named “009ef2c9-1a5c-4564-8156-92b85d9d7705.wssx” (if it exists).

4) In the “msi” subfolder, delete the entire subfolder named “009ef2c9-1a5c-4564-8156-92b85d9d7705” (if it exists).

5) Open the following folder on your server:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\Data\settingsproviderdata\WEBSERVICESPLATFORM\ADDINS

6) Look through all of the .xml files that are located within that folder until you find the one that corresponds to WSE RemoteApp (i.e. just double click on the .xml file in order to open it in the web browser, or you can open it in Notepad, WordPad, etc. and then search its text-based contents for “WSE RemoteApp” to know that you’ve located the correct .xml file). Once you’ve located the correct .xml file, go ahead and delete it from your server (note that you can also delete the corresponding .bak file as well).

NOTE: This file contains installation information, etc. about the WSE RemoteApp add-in on the server (such as its version number, etc.). It will be automatically recreated the next time you perform an installation of the add-in.

7) Try running the latest “WSERemoteAppXXXX.wssx” (or “WSERemoteAppXXXX.exe”) installer file again (directly from the administrator’s desktop).

NOTE: Be sure to choose the “On the server and on all of the computers on the network” install option when prompted by the installation wizard. As doing so will cause the add-in to be re-installed onto all of your client computers again.

Does that help any?

WHS/WSE QuickBooks is one of my older “legacy” products. It has been superseded by WHS/WSE RemoteApp. Basically, WHS/WSE QuickBooks allows you to use only QuickBooks as a RemoteApp program; whereas WHS/WSE RemoteApp allows you to publish any application that is installed on the server as a RemoteApp program (including QuickBooks). Therefore, since you are wanting to use more RemoteApp programs than just QuickBooks, then WHS/WSE RemoteApp would indeed be a better match for you.

Additionally, you will need to match the edition of WHS/WSE RemoteApp you install/purchase to the version of Windows Server that you have installed on your server as follows:

If you have Windows Home Server 2011, Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, or Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, then you want to use WHS RemoteApp 2011.

If you have Windows Server 2012 Essentials, then you want to use WSE RemoteApp 2012.

If you have Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials, Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials, or Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard/Datacenter (with the Windows Server Essentials Experience server role), then you want to use WSE RemoteApp 2012 R2.

If you have Windows Server 2016 Essentials or Windows Server 2016 Standard/Datacenter (with the Windows Server Essentials Experience server role), then you want to use WSE RemoteApp 2016.

Lastly, the “edition” of WHS/WSE RemoteApp that you purchase (Student Edition, Starter Edition, Basic Edition, Standard Edition, Professional Edition, etc.) depends only upon the number of users and/or RemoteApp programs that you need. Functionality wise, they are all equivalent.

WSE RemoteApp’s client-side connector will only be installed onto your Windows client computers that have the Windows Server Essentials Connector software (i.e. the Launchpad) installed on them. The Windows Server Essentials Connector software can be installed on both domain-joined and non-domain-joined client computers of your network. For more information see:

Connect computers to a Windows Server Essentials server without joining the domain

If you have Windows client computers that do not have the Windows Server Essentials Connector software (i.e. the Launchpad) installed on them, then you can still have them remotely connect to WSE RemoteApp using the add-in’s gadget that is located on the server’s built-in Remote Web Access website. Additionally, you can use WSE RemoteApp’s RADC web feeds functionality in order to remotely connect to it from Mac, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and/or Windows devices that don’t/can’t have the Launchpad installed on them.

Please see the “Higher Editions” section of our Policy page for instructions on how to move up to a higher edition of the product that you have purchased (in order to increase the number of users/RemoteApps on your existing license).