This is a lesson that did not come easy but it sure was helpful to discover.  When creating an Azure deployment package as a developer because you will hand-off to a deployment group within IT, pretty much you published your Azure component to generate the package and configuration files.  When deploying to enable RDP, in my conversation with many developers the concern in the end was, I have to do the deployment through Visual Studio to enable those options.  The answer is both Yes and No.

The items that stay the same:

1. You will Deploy the Windows Azure Project. And click on Configure Remote Desktop connections

SNAGHTML7420da

2. You will configure the Remote Desktop settings.

SNAGHTML759a5d

 

Here is where it will change …

3. You will get back the initial dialog, and switch from “Deploy your Windows Azure project to Windows Azure” to “Create Service Package Only”, then click OK.

SNAGHTML781102 

Now, if you want to validate, open the recently created ServiceConfiguration.cscfg.  You will notice the following lines:

<Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.Enabled" value="true" />
      <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountUsername" value="<username>" />
      <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountEncryptedPassword" value="<pretty long key>" />
      <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountExpiration" value="2011-04-30T23:59:59.0000000-04:00" />
      <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteForwarder.Enabled" value="true" />
    </ConfigurationSettings>
    <Certificates>
      <Certificate name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.PasswordEncryption" thumbprint="<thumbprint>" thumbprintAlgorithm="sha1" />
    </Certificates>

REMEMBER: When creating the Hosted Service, before you deploy:

1) Make sure you have the Management Certificate in place

image

2) Make sure you have a certificate attached to the Hosted Service.

image