This policy setting lets you enable H.264/AVC hardware encoding support for Remote Desktop Connections. When you enable hardware encoding, if an error occurs, we will attempt to use software encoding. If you disable or do not configure this policy, we will always use software encoding. If you set the encoding option to "Always Attempt", Remote Desktop will always try to use H.264/AVC hardware encoding when available, be aware that, for Windows Server running Hyper-V with RemoteFX vGPU enabled, the policy has to be set on the Hyper-V host machine. If you set the encoding option to "Attempt only for RemoteFX vGPU virtual machines" be aware that, for Windows Server running Hyper-V with RemoteFX vGPU enabled, the policy has to be set on the Hyper-V host machine. If you set the encoding option to "Attempt only for non-RemoteFX vGPU scenarios", Remote Desktop attempts to use hardware encoding for all scenarios except RemoteFX vGPU. Countermeasure: Configure this setting depending on your organization's requirements. Potential Impact: H.264/AVC hardware encoding is used as configured.

[always attempt/attempt only for remotefx vgpu virtual machines/attempt only for non-remotefx vgpu scenarios]

(1) GPO: Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host\Remote Session Environment\Configure H.264/AVC hardware encoding for Remote Desktop Connections (2) REG: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services!AVCHardwareEncodePreferred