How to see Android from "Windows Remote Desktop Connection" if Android is connected to Windows via USB?

Question

I have Windows 10 computer C1 (home computer) and I have Windows Server computer C2 (work computer) and I am running "Windows Remote Desktop Connection" from C1 to access C2. I have quite sophisticated applications on C2 (e.g. my office programs like https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi for developing and debugging Android applications).

I have physical access to computer C1 (home computer) and I have connected Android tablet via USB cable to C1 and I can see in C1 Windows Explorer that tablet is available for file transfers, debugging etc.

My question is - how can I share this USB connection so, that it can be accessed from Remote Desktop Connection, i.e. from C2 (office computer) as well? Currently C2 (as accessed from RDC session from C2) does not show table in "This PC" Windows Explorer and there is no notification about connected tablet device in the notification area either.

I have tried https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-do-i-enable-a-usb-device-in-remote-desktop/113af42e-5b99-4f6b-bc6f-f8bc1007e34f There are 2 answers: 1) about "Allow Remote access to your Computer" and 2) about group policy editing. I followed both advices but my Android tablet is still not visible in RDC C2.

Google search suggested https://www.net-usb.com/android-remote-access/ but it is Remote Desktop access to/from Android device and not about RDC between two windows computers. This search https://android.stackexchange.com/search?q=%22remote+desktop+connection%22 gave non-relevant results, so, my question will not be duplicate certainly.

Answer 1

The device types Windows Remote Desktop Connection supports for forwarding through it's connection are very limited and can AFAIK not be extended. But even if your tablet would be visible in Windows Explorer this would not help you as for development you need the USB device part that speaks Android Debug Bridge (adb), a protocol that is never visible in Windows Explorer. Visible in Windows Explorer is only MTP protocol that is not used for development and debugging.

If you want adb access on the remote server (C2) and the phone is connected to your local PC (C1), you need to redirect adb traffic from C2 to C1, e.g. using an SSH tunnel.

Or you can try use new remote debugging feature available on Android 11+.

The old plain ADB over Wifi is theoretically also possible but I would not use it unless the computers C1 and C2 are connected using a VPN or something similar because ADB over Wifi is for a security perspective like telnet: all data are transmitted in plain text without any protection or encryption. So any computer between the phone and the used development environment can read and modify all transmitted data.