A Guide to Deploying Terminal Services
James D. Silliman
At a Glance:
â– Deploy Terminal Services in a few easy steps
â– Optimize Office in your TS environment
â– Manage your users efficiently using TS
Flash back to 1998: Microsoft releases Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, code-named "Hydra." Microsoft licensed technology from Citrix Systems, creating its first thin-client/
server offering. For system administrators, "Hydra" was a difficult deployment. Fast-forward a few years and Terminal Services has changed dramatically. It's fully integrated into the kernel and sets up easily with a built-in installation wizard, requiring no separate CD or Internet download. Given the relative ease of installation, there are many reasons why deploying Terminal Services in your organization makes sense. The most immediate advantage is having all your applications run on a central server or servers, so that client architecture and hardware is not an issue. All the end user needs is a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client to connect to the central servers. Fortunately, RDP clients are available for most current architectures.
In this article, I show you how to enable Terminal Services on an existing Windows Server® 2003 installation, how to apply Terminal Services Group Policies, and how to use the Custom Installation Wizard to automate Microsoft® Outlook® profile settings. When we're finished, you will have a fully deployed Terminal Server to serve up applications to your users.
