What is a remote Windows app?

Imagine a window looking out over a long distance, and on a desk far away, a computer running your program. What you see through the window is that computer's screen, close enough to read. When you reach for the keyboard, your keystrokes travel across and the computer on the far desk receives them. That is the whole thing.

The window is your browser tab. The computer on the far desk is a Windows machine in a data centre. And the thing carrying the picture and the keystrokes is an ordinary internet connection.

Two streams cross the connection, in opposite directions.

• The picture: what the program draws on screen, compressed so it travels quickly. Only what changes needs sending.
• Your input: mouse movements, clicks and key presses, sent to the far machine and applied there.

The program itself, its files, its settings and its connections to anything else all stay on the far machine. Your device never receives the program. That is why nothing needs installing, why an old or modest device is fine and why your files are not sitting on your laptop.

It is also why you need a connection while you work. The far machine is only reachable over the internet.

The reasons are usually small and practical.

• The program only runs on Windows, and you use something else.
• You want one copy of the program and its data, not one per device.
• A client or employer wants their files kept off personal devices.
• You do not want a spare computer for something you use now and then.

Anything that needs special hardware plugged into your own computer, work that needs no delay at all, or heavy graphics are harder or impossible. And it will not work with no connection. Be honest about those before you build a workflow around it.