I need to connect to a Win2008R2 RDP Remote App server using various client platforms, especially Win7, Android and iOS. On all cases, I'm using the official Microsoft's apps/programs to connect to the server. The server will publish some basic applications and it should be visible both from internal LAN and from the Internet (via a NAT/port redirect).
Connecting from internal LAN, I have no problem at all: any client can connect without troubles. However, when testing connection from outside (from Internet) via NAT/port redirect, problems begin. Both Android and iOS clients can see the name/icon of the published application without problems, but when trying to connect they die with the following message:
We couldn't connect to the remote PC because the PC can't be found. Please provide the fully-qualified name or IP address of the remote PC, and then try again. Error code: 0x104
From Wireshark output, it seems that Android and iOS clients try to resolve the machine NetBIOS name via a NetBIOS query, which is an inherently unroutable resolve process (it sends a NetBIOS packet to the broadcast address, somewhat similarly to what ARP does). Of course, the client can not resolve and die with the above error.
It seems very strange to me that a such important feature (RemoteApp) require mobile clients to connect from inside LAN only. I am missing something?