The Windows 8.1 image is available in gallery when creating an Azure Virtual Machine. (Figure 1) With Windows 8.1, you can log in the Virtual Machine with a Microsoft account to obtain useful features of Windows.
In this article, we use a Hotmail address as the Microsoft account to introduce the detailed steps of using a Microsoft account to remote desktop into the Azure Windows 8.1 Virtual Machine.
Figure 1.
1. Remote desktop into the Windows 8.1 Virtual Machine
You can use an administrator account to remote desktop into an Azure Virtual Machine running Windows 8.1. (From the figure 2, you can see that the testing Virtual Machine name is test and the administrator account is test01.)
(Note: If the logon account is not an administrator account, you will access denied or prompt for an administrator credential in the following steps.)
Figure 2.
2. Add a Microsoft account
(1) Access “Control Panel\User Accounts and Family Safety\User Accounts”, then choose “Make changes to my account in PC settings.” to the Accounts management page.
(2) After that, click “Other accounts”, then click“Add an account” in the right page. (Figure 3)
Figure 3.
(3) Type your Microsoft account, then clickNext. (Figure 4)
Figure 4.
(4) ClickFinish. (Figure 5)
Figure 5.
3. Assign Remote Access permission to the Microsoft account
(1) Check the Microsoft account in Computer Management
You can open Computer Management through the path: Control Panel\System and Security\Administrative Tools\Computer Management. After that, you can see that the Microsoft account you have added is displaying in Local Users group. (Figure 6)
Figure 6.
Note: You may find that the displaying name won’t be the same as your Microsoft account. This is normal that the user name displays different as a user name in Local Users and Groups cannot consist of the character: @. Of course, you cannot add a Microsoft account in Computer Management directly or you will receive the error message as the figure 7 below:
Figure 7.
(2) Add the Microsoft account into the Remote Desktop Users group or the Administrator group to assign the account the right to logon remotely: (In this article, we just add the Microsoft account into the Remote Desktop Users group.)
a. ClickGroups under Local Users and Groups, then double-clickAdministrators or Remote Desktop Users. (Figure 8)
Figure 8.
2) In Administrators or Remote Desktop Properties dialog box, clickAdd… box. (Figure 9)
Figure 9.
3) In Select Users dialog box, enter the account name and then clickOK. (Note: the object name is not the actual Microsoft name, but the account name which displays in Users) (Figure 10)
Figure 10.
4) ClickOK in Properties dialog box to save the changes. (Figure 11)
Figure 11.
4. Change System Remote Settings
(1) Access "Control Panel\System and Security\System," and click "Remote settings".
(2) Uncheck "Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication (recommended)”. (Figure 12)
Figure 12.
3) ClickOK to save the change.
5. Edit the .rdp file
1) Save the .rdp file locally
ClickConnect in Azure Management portal, then click Save orSave as to save the .rdp file locally. (Figure 13)
Figure 13.
2) Open the .rdp file
We can right-click the .rdp file and chooseopen with notepad to open the .rdp file. (Figure 14)
Note: In general, the default type of the .rdp file would be Remote Desktop Connection. If you double-click the .rdp file, it will open with Remote Desktop Connection.
Figure 14.
3) Modify and save the .rdp file
Replace “prompt for credentials:i:1” with “enablecredsspsupport:i:0” and then save the change. (Figure 15)
Figure 15.
6. Connect with the Microsoft account
(1) Disconnect from the current remote connection before you connect with the Microsoft account.
(2) Connect using the modified .rdp file and clickConnection in the Remote Desktop Connection dialog box.
(3) Choose the Microsoft account to sign in. (Figure 16)
Figure 16.
(4) Enter the Password of your Microsoft account to logon. (Figure 17)
7. Change System Remote Settings back
You can follow the previous steps for changing system remote settings and check "Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication (recommended)”. (Figure 18)
Figure 18.
Note: Since you signed in with the Microsoft account, if you just add it into the Remote Desktop Users group in the previous steps, you will prompt for the administrator credential to perform this operation. (Figure 19)
Figure 19.
8. Remote desktop connection using the Microsoft Account with Network Level Authentication
Since you have configured Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication, you cannot connect using the modified .rdp file, or you will receive the error message as below:
“The remote computer requires Network Level Authentication, which your computer does not support, contact your system administrator or technical support.”
In these scenario, you have two options to perform the Remote Desktop connection:
Method 1: Modify the .rdp file back
Open the modified .rdp file with notepad, replace "enablecredsspsupport:i:0" with "prompt for credentials:i:1" and then save the change. (Figure 20)
Figure 20.
Method 2: ClickConnect from Azure management portal, and then click Open to start a Remote desktop connection or clickSave to save the new .rdp file locally. (Figure 21)
Figure 21.
After that, you can use "microsoftaccount\xxx" (xxx is your Microsoft account name) as user name in remote desktop dialog to remote desktop into the Windows 8.1 Virtual Machine. (Figure 22)
Figure 22.
From Figure 23, you can see that we can remote desktop into the Virtual Machine running Windows 8.1 with the Microsoft account successfully.
Figure 23.
More information:
http://visualstudio2013msdngalleryimage.azurewebsites.net/windowsclient.htm
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