This may be a stupid question considering it's open source but I have 3 kubectl contexts on my PC (one local, handled by Rancher, the others AWS). I can start rancher desktop which fires up my local K8S instance and I can switch context in the rancher desktop toolbar to an AWS one but when I start the "Rancher K8S dashboard" this keeps using the local cluster. Is using a remote cluster not supported in this edition?

Hello, only local cluster from Rancher Desktop app is supported by incorporated Dashboard - there are also some features like

Cluster Management

and

Apps

disabled. So it's not intended to connect to remote Rancher WebUI, it's purpose is mainly that you can walk thru local k8s resources in graphical UI.

Tomas is right. There's no connection between Rancher and Rancher Desktop.