Parallels RAS 22 Technical Preview: What's New

The Parallels RAS 22 Technical Preview is now available.

Security is a major focus for this release. One of the biggest additions is client device posture checking, which gives IT teams more information about a device before trusting it with access. RAS 22 also introduces direct access to SMB files from the User Portal, improvements for Mac users, and a range of changes for admins managing RAS environments.

There's also work underway on Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) Hybrid, giving organizations another option for running desktops on their own infrastructure while using the AVD experience.

Here's what you can explore in the Technical Preview.

Check device security before granting access

Knowing who has signed in doesn't tell IT much about the device they're using. Is antivirus software running and up to date? Is the device using an approved operating system or browser version? Those questions matter, particularly when employees, contractors, or partners connect from devices outside IT's direct control.

Client device posture checks bring that information into RAS. Admins can check devices against security requirements and see their compliance status across the environment. These checks aren't limited to the point of login. RAS can continue checking device posture, giving admins a current view of which devices meet their requirements. For organizations with BYOD users, that closes an important visibility gap.

Open files directly from the User Portal

RAS 22 adds a Files area to the User Portal. Users can browse files alongside their applications and favorites, then select a file to open it in the appropriate application. There's no need to switch to a separate file client just to find and open a document. The feature uses existing SMB file shares. For IT, that means there's no separate file infrastructure to deploy to provide this access through RAS. It's a straightforward addition, but one that can make the User Portal a more useful starting point for everyday work.

AVD Hybrid: Run AVD workloads in your data centre

Not every organization wants every desktop and dataset running in Azure. With Azure Virtual Desktop Hybrid support planned for RAS 22, organizations will be able to use Microsoft's AVD experience, including the Windows App with Teams optimization, while keeping desktops and data on their own infrastructure and hypervisor.

Parallels RAS provides management for those on-premises resources, with the aim of giving admins one console for Azure-hosted and on-premises desktops and users a consistent client experience. This gives organizations another way to decide where workloads should live based on their infrastructure, cost, and data requirements rather than requiring everything to be hosted in Azure.

More control over access and authentication

Several other RAS 22 changes focus on tightening access without applying the same rules to every connection. Public IP access control lets admins apply policies based on where a connection is actually coming from. An external contractor, for example, could be required to complete additional verification, while an internal connection follows a different authentication path.

Other security changes include:

• SAML as a second factor: Adds SAML as another option for second-factor authentication.
• Gateway hardening and API rate limiting: Adds protection against high volumes of connection attempts and improves gateway resilience.
• Trusted farm verification: Adds trust verification between servers in a RAS deployment to help prevent untrusted systems from joining the environment.
• Updated SAML design: Includes underlying security changes to strengthen SAML authentication.
• Session tunneling for Linux and iOS/iPadOS: Extends secure session tunneling to users on these platforms.

RAS 22 also includes experimental work on session recording and playback. The capability is intended for scenarios such as audits and incident investigations where teams need a record of activity within a user session.

Remote apps that behave more naturally on a Mac

Mac users will see some noticeable changes in RAS 22. True Coherence mode for Mac makes published remote applications behave more like locally installed Mac applications. They appear and behave naturally in the Dock rather than feeling contained inside a separate remote environment. Users can also see live window previews when hovering over an app in the Dock. A few smaller changes address common Mac workflows. Images copied between a RAS session and macOS now retain their transparency, avoiding unwanted backgrounds when pasted. RAS also provides a clearer permission prompt when a local Mac drive is being shared with read/write access to a remote session.

Fixing some everyday session annoyances

Some of the most useful changes in a release aren't headline features. Take keyboard layouts. If a user switches the keyboard layout on their local device, unified keyboard layout sync carries that change into the remote session automatically. This is particularly useful for people who regularly switch input methods, including users typing in Korean or Japanese. Time zone redirection now reflects the user's local time zone in the remote session without requiring the RDS role or additional server configuration. RAS 22 also adds UI configuration for redirected drive write caching, giving admins more direct control over settings that affect drive redirection and file-copy performance. Users will see improvements to password expiry notifications as well, with clearer warnings when a password is approaching its expiry date.

Less friction for RAS admins

RAS 22 includes a collection of smaller changes aimed at jobs admins regularly handle.

• Update agents in Drain Mode: Updates the RAS agent while a host is being taken out of service instead of adding a separate maintenance step.
• See RDSH uptime: Check show long a host has been running directly from RAS.
• View auto-scaler workload percentage: Gets a visual indication of host pool workload to help with capacity decisions.
• Configure Grafana dashboards: Connects RAS monitoring to the Grafana instance your organization chooses.
• Use custom certificates with Cost Insights: Fits the service into environments with existing certificate requirements.
• Deploy the User Portal behind third-party load balancers without cookies: Removes configuration previously needed for this setup.
• Set MSIX launch parameters: Provides more control over how delivered MSIX applications launch.
• Use current OS and SQL Server versions: Work with a refreshed supported operating system and SQL Server matrix.
• VDI platform hardening: Adds underlying reliability and security improvements to the VDI platform.

Try RAS 22 before general availability

The Technical Preview is a chance to put these changes into a real environment and see how they fit the way you use RAS.

For security teams, client device posture checks are likely to be one of the first features worth exploring. If your users spend time moving between applications and files, try the new SMB file access in the User Portal. Mac-heavy environments can test the new Coherence experience and session improvements, while RAS admins have plenty of smaller operational changes to put through their paces. Most importantly, the preview gives you a chance to provide feedback while RAS 22 is still being finalized.

Download the Parallels RAS 22 Technical Preview, test the features that matter to your environment, and let us know what you think.