FAQ
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Getting Started
The hosted desktop means that it is run; delivered and supported from a central location; usually a secure data center with high quality resilient connections to the Internet/Cloud. You can connect to a Hosted Desktop via a browser; a thin client and other handheld devices. This service is offered by us from a SAS 70 certified data center which has resilient Internet connections; secure access.Many applications are preconfigured for the user and these applications are updated regularly; thereby saving time that a user has to spend in updating/upgrading his Operating System or applications. All these tasks are performed by Apps4Rent.
All desktops are provisioned within the first few hours of signup. In some cases, it may take upto 1 business day.
You can access your Hosted Desktop from almost all devices that have the ability to connect to the Internet. Some prerequisites and some example of devices that can connect have been provided below.Some examples of devices:
Laptops and desktop computers – Supported Operating Systems:
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Windows 2003
Windows 2008
Mac OS
Linux and its variants
Mobile Devices:
iPhones
Andriod Devices
BlackBerry
Tablet Devices:
iPads
Samsung Galaxy
HP Pixi
Motorola Xoom
Thin clients:
HP
Wyse
Ncomputing
NOTE: Except for thin clients all other devices/computers must have either a Remote Desktop Tool to or IE 6 or high browser supporting ActiveX components.
Yes you will be able to copy/move your data from your existing computer to the Hosted Desktop. To move/copy the data there are various methods. For Copy/Paste function, you simply need to copy the data as you do within your desktop and paste it into the Hosted Desktop Environment.To move files; either you can drag / drop the files when connected via RDP to your Hosted Desktop or when you connect via Remote Desktop Tool; your local drives are also displayed as drives in the Hosted Desktop environment and you can simply move files like you do in your local desktop.
We offer 24/7 support via chat, email and phone.
We only support the desktop that we host for you. We will support those issues on your local desktop that prevent you from accessing our hosted desktop service. Apps4Rent will host and manage the hosted desktop for you on its own infrastructure. If you have any issues with the local physical PC/device that you have locally then that needs to be addressed by the local in-house technician.
Yes. You will be able to access your Hosted Desktop via Mac and Linux systems by using the Remote Desktop Tool.
There are various factors that will determine your bandwidth requirement. Hosted Desktop as a technology does not use much bandwidth. The only data that is actually transmitted between your local device/computer and Hosted Desktop Grid are few keystrokes and some simple screens. Generally, ordinary high speed connection with data transfer speeds greater than 128kbps would be sufficient.
Your Hosted Desktop will never be down from data center at any time. However, your connectivity to the Hosted Desktop depends upon your Internet connection. If your ISP or your Internet Connection is down, you will not be able to access the Hosted Desktop. You will only be able to access the Hosted Desktop when you have a working Internet connection.If you were working on a file and you lost internet or power; you file will be in the same state as when you lost internet/power.
In almost all cases the applications will run faster than it has been running on your local desktop. This is simply because, with your PC, the resources at the applications disposal are fairly limited and is upto your PC. However, with Hosted Desktop all the processing takes place on our High Performance servers and the resources available are enormous due to the infrastructure and the grid that we offer for use for your Hosted Desktop users.
We compared the speeds between MS Access on desktop and on the Hosted Desktop. The application ran up to 10X times faster on the hosted desktop than on the local desktop. This is significantly due to the resources on the server side which is at applications disposal. We follow and adhere to Microsoft’s recommendations for the number of Hosted Desktop that a server should hold. This in turn ensures that the overall performance of the Hosted Desktop is not degraded at any time.
Environment
Absolutely. You will be able to add additional space to your hosted desktop or to team’s shared space at any point. 10 GB of Space is priced at $15 per month per desktop. These charges will be over and above your existing charges. Also, you can decide which user needs additional space and which users don’t need to be upgraded.
Yes. You will be able to switch plans anytime or buy space without any loss of data.
Your Hosted Desktop will display the time which is on your local device.
Hardware & Software
Yes. You will be able to switch plans anytime or buy space without any loss of data.
Yes. When you connect to the hosted desktop, by default a “connection” is made to route all the print commands from your Hosted Desktop session to the local printer. There is a setting which is enabled by default on your local computer. If for any reason the setting is disabled; we will help you in enabling the setting. Here is the procedure to enable the setting:http://www.apps4rent.com/support/kb/article/sharing-printersusb-devices-and-local-resources-between-hosted-desktop-and-your-computer
Yes. This is possible. All you need to do is inform us of the applications that you don’t need by sending an e-mail to support from your registered e-mail address.
We use Windows Terminal Services to provide Hosted Desktop Services. If your application is compatible with Windows Terminal Services or can be installed via Terminal Services then we will be glad to install them for you at an additional cost. Most of the applications that work in in Windows XP; Windows Vista and Windows 7 are compatible even under Terminal Server environment. In such cases, all licenses needs to be provided by you.For example, almost all applications that work with Windows 7 under Terminal Services will work within the Hosted Desktop environment. If we are provided with the application name then we will be able to check it and see how it can be used / installed in Terminal Server environment.
Here are some general guidelines:
Almost all Windows XP; Vista and Windows 7 based applications that work on your local PC will work in the Hosted Desktop environment.
Generic Applications like Java based applications will Run in most cases.
Popular Office Suites can also run in our environment.
Many of the freewares that are known to work on your desktop will work on most cases.
Hosted Desktop can support up to 16 monitors for a session.
Most certainly. If you have the licenses for QuickBooks then you can provide it to us at an additional cost of $2.99 per user per month. This is in addition to your Hosted Desktop monthly recurring charges.
Most certainly. If you have the licenses for QuickBooks then you can provide it to us at and we’ll enable them for you at an additional cost of $2.99 per user per month. This is over and above your Hosted Desktop monthly recurring charges.
Unfortunately, due to various licensing restrictions you will need to use our licenses of MS Office.
Security
Hosted Desktop is very secure.Have you ever wondered about the security of the data when you send an Excel Sheet from your local computer to someone else? The fact is in most cases the files can be “sniffed” and contents read. This is simply due to the fact that the connection from your ISP is not encrypted.
With Hosted Desktop the connection is always going to be encrypted even between your ISP and the Hosted Desktop that you would have with us. When a user connects to the Hosted Desktop the connection is established via a 2048 bit RSA encryption method. Apps4Rent has deployed an SSL so as to ensure that the connection is secure from the users location to Hosted Desktop servers.
Apps4Rent employs advanced security systems in place to safeguard data. The entire infrastructure is hosted in SAS 70 Type II certified data centers in New York and New Jersey. The entire network in encapsulated under enterprise grade firewall with CISCO ASA and along with IPS system in place to thwart any intrusion.
Data backup is automatically performed once per day.http://www.apps4rent.com/backup-policy.html
Apps4Rent employs various methods to safeguard data. Your data will be accessible to users who have your password. We request our users to not share the password with others. User passwords are not visible to Apps4Rent as they as encrypted.
Anti-Virus and Firewall are installed on each virtual desktop. You will not be able to disable them.
Apps4Rent takes weekly full and daily incremental backups. These backups run nightly. During any Disaster scenario; we will be able to provide you with the backups which we have.
Other
We guarantee uptime to be 99.9% or greater.
SaaS and Hosted Desktop are provided from a data center, that is the only similarity between them. With SaaS there is specific software on the cloud which is used by many organizations and users for various purposes. With Hosted Desktop; your desktop is hosted within a data center with many pre-defined application applications that you need, which you can access from any part of the world.
There are no long term contracts with Apps4Rent. The contract is month to month and is renewed automatically every month. You may cancel at any time by following our cancelation procedure.
Yes. You will be able to custom brand the Hosted Desktop.
