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Introduction to Terminal Services in Windows Server 2003
Even if you do nothing else with Microsoft's Terminal Services, set up a remote
connection so that administrators can hook up to your Windows 2003 servers.
Trust me, one day this remote connection will save your bacon. Naturally, security is a concern, but you can can control who can connect via the permissions settings.
Remote Desktop Connections provide each client with a private link to Terminal server.
You may have already used the very same technology to access one XP machine from
another.
Rather than rolling out XP on every desktop, deploy terminal services and
provide the same client technology, but with most of the processing is
done on the server.
Some say that terminal services is like going back to the main frame.
Students of nature say that no large organism has existed without a central
nervous system. As science tends to mimic nature, I do believe that
eventually everyone will be using thin clients. Perhaps the greatest
appeal of terminal services is the rapid deployment of software, just install
and configure once on the server, rather than repeating hundreds or thousands of
times for each client.
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History and New Features
of Terminal Services 2003
One reason for studying history is to see how far Terminal Services has come
since it started life as an add-on for Microsoft's NT 4.0. In Windows 2000 Terminal
services became just another program to install through add or remove software.
These early terminal servers had two modes, Application and Remote
Administration. The situation in Server 2003 is that Remote Administration
mode becomes Remote Desktop and is installed automatically on each Server 2003.
Application is mode is the what the dozens of clients need to run their
Remote Desktop session. Application mode is what you install through Add
or Remove programs.
With the arrival of Windows Server 2003 many of the previous Terminal Service niggles have
been ironed out. For instance, we now have true color, rather than being limited to 256
resolution. Keyboard combinations like Alt + Tab work in the terminal server
window. Local resources like files and com ports have been added to local
printers. So that you benefits from all the server resources as well as
having the local resources available when wanted.
The key Terminal Service technology is delivered by RDP (Remote Desktop
Protocol) which just passes keystrokes and screen refreshes across the network. Another improvement
in Windows 2003 is a more efficient network connection, quite frankly, I have
never found the network bandwidth to be a problem with Terminal Services, the
bottleneck is more often memory on the server.
Three Configuration Interfaces
If I have one tiny criticism of Terminal Service it is that you need to check
three different interfaces to configure the settings, Licensing, Configuration and Server
Manager. Worse, only Terminal Services Configuration is available as a snap in
for my MMC, the others I have to access the long way around via, All Programs,
Administrative Tools.
Terminal
Services Configuration
8 tabs combine to provide the RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol settings. You can
either control the settings via these menus or you can limit the users' freedom via Group Policies if you prefer.
Useful settings include, idle timeouts, client settings - drive mapping and
remote control for your help desk.
Terminal Services Manager
This is the interface where you can inspect which users are connected to the
Terminal Server. If necessary you can send those users messages and even
take control of their machines. Sometimes users do not logoff, and so you
may wish to delete old sessions to free up resources.
Terminal Services Licensing
All I want to do here is point out that each client needs a Microsoft licence. Users who connect from an old Windows 9x machine cannot
expect to get the XP experience interface for nothing, so they must buy a
licence. The two exceptions, which do not require a licence, are remote
administrators mode, and XP machines.
The precise cost of the licences will vary. When I last looked they were in
the region of $65 and dropping. I wish that I could be more definite, but
there are so many deals and rule changes that it is impossible to give an
accurate up-to-date figure.
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Clients
The Terminal Service client is now called Remote Desktop Connection (RDC).
It is virtually identical to the remote desktop of XP.
Note the option button where you can set the password and user account for
the connection.
You can also allow the user to tune the performance and the resources.
Perhaps most of these settings are best controlled by a Group Policy.
Group Policies for Terminal Services
What I particularly like about Windows 2003 are the increased Group Policies
to control almost every aspect of the client server connection. For
example, I recommend: 'Remove Disconnect Option from Shutdown'. However,
not all policies are negative, I particularly like the Automatic Reconnect and
Keep-alive connections.
