Chromium Browser to Remove XSLT Support in November, Potentially Affecting Remote Desktop Web Access
Google's Chromium browser will remove XSLT support in its November update, which may disrupt Windows Server's Remote Desktop Web Access. Microsoft has notified organizations of the potential impact.
Technology media outlet IT Home reported on October 10 that Google's Chromium-based browsers are set to remove support for XSLT in their upcoming November update. This change could potentially cause disruptions to Windows Server's Remote Desktop Web Access (RD Web Access) functionality.
Google has announced plans to discontinue client-side XSLT support by mid-November. XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) is a language used to transform XML documents into other formats or structures, enabling web pages to render content. Microsoft's RD Web Access relies on this technology for page rendering.
The decision to remove XSLT support is attributed to two main factors: low usage, accounting for approximately 0.02% of web traffic, and security risks associated with the complex, older C/C++ codebase used in Chromium's implementation of XSLT, which may contain vulnerabilities like buffer overflows.
Microsoft has provided a workaround through update KB5130993, allowing administrators to enable client-side XSLT processing again via policy or registry settings. Alternative solutions include adopting an HTML5 web client for direct remote desktop session launches in the browser or enabling IE mode within Microsoft Edge for specific RD Web addresses.