Vista has been a decent Operating System so far but there are still a large number of software vendors who were not prepared for the OS. A number of statistical software packages are at this point not supported so I decided to implement a Terminal Server for users to access. The terminal server is not being deployed only as a quick fix to manufacturers short comings in software development. I have made the server available on a VPN for users to work from home where they do not have access to applications that are usually required to run on a LAN. Maintenance, licensing, and performance are some of the other benefits.

The first trick to setting up the terminal server was licensing. Since we are not running a cluster of terminal servers the license model was simple. I was able to set the terminal server to be a license server for its self which saved me from having to setup another machine to be a license server. Next was a journey over to CDW in order to purchase some terminal server licenses. When setting up the server there are two license modes, per device and per user. I went with per user because I wanted several hundred users to be able to login without having several hundred licenses.

Next was to setup security on the server so that only the groups I wanted would be able to login. Group policies were also implemented so that folder redirection and additional security features could be employed. The users must login through a vpn from remote locations though with most of our users have fast Internet connections so the vpn didn not really cause additional latency. Documentation was the final product to be constructed. As with any documentation I have gotten feedback to help write enough information so that all of the users are able to be instructed how to connect to our server and run applications remotely.