When a Nairobi office wants every member of staff logging into the same Windows accounting package from their own desk, a laptop at home, or a branch in Mombasa, that is a Remote Desktop job. Windows Server does it through RDS and RemoteApp, and done right it means one licensed server instead of the app installed and breaking on twenty separate machines.
We set up Remote Desktop hosting for Nairobi offices on Windows Server 2025, so this is the build and the traps as we run it in July 2026.
What Remote Desktop hosting gives a Nairobi office
RDS lets many users share one Windows Server and run applications on it as if they were local. RemoteApp goes a step further: the user sees just the accounting or ERP window on their own desktop, not a whole remote machine, so it feels native while everything runs and stays on the server. One place to patch, one place to back up, and a laptop that gets lost or stolen holds no data.
That is the appeal for a growing office. It is also how you publish an app that only runs on Windows to staff who are not all in the same room.
Sizing an RDS server, and the bandwidth it needs
Two numbers matter: what the server needs, and what the link needs. We start a shared RDS host around 4 vCPU and 16 GB of RAM for the first 15 light users, then scale by watching real memory and session load rather than a vendor table.
The link surprises people. A RemoteApp session for line-of-business work is light, roughly 150 to 300 Kbps per active user, so a 20-person office runs comfortably on a business fibre connection with room to spare. Video and heavy graphics change that, but accounting and ERP sessions do not. Where the office link is the weak point, we size the connectivity alongside the server instead of blaming the app later.
The licence nobody budgets for
Every user or device connecting over Remote Desktop needs an RDS Client Access Licence, and it sits on top of the standard Windows Server CAL, not instead of it. This is the meter that turns a "cheap" server into an expensive one for a 40-person office, and it is the one offshore hosts quietly leave off the first quote. Microsoft documents the RDS CAL requirement plainly enough. We fold those licences into the one monthly figure so the count is right from day one, and we lay out every meter in what Windows Server licensing costs.
Never put Remote Desktop on the open internet
This is the part that gets Kenyan businesses breached. Exposing RDP straight to the internet on port 3389 is how ransomware crews get in, and they scan for it constantly. We never do it. Access goes through an RD Gateway over TLS or a VPN, with multi-factor authentication in front, so there is no open Windows login facing the world.
On every RDS build we hand over, the same controls are locked in as part of our cybersecurity baseline:
- No RDP port exposed to the internet, gateway or VPN only
- Multi-factor authentication on every remote login
- Account lockout and rate limiting against password spraying
- Session logging and idle timeouts so a walked-away laptop logs itself out
Tell us how many people connect, what app they are logging into, and whether they are in the office or remote, and we will size the server, get the RDS licensing right, and hand it over secured in about 24 hours. Use the quote form or WhatsApp us on +254 719 246 379. The quote is free.