Chapter 11: Server Configuration: Windows Terminal Services

Overview

As we've established thus far in this book, it takes far more to build a server-based computing environment than just following the installation manuals for the software. In this chapter, we will discuss the installation and configuration tips, tricks, and techniques we have developed over the last five years of working with the server-based computing products from Citrix and Microsoft. Clearly, the majority of the work required to build an SBC environment is in building and configuring the servers and applications, and thus this chapter covers the many nuances and tricks to sizing and building a stable Terminal Services Farm based on Windows 2000/2003. The next chapter, Chapter 12, will cover the installation and configuration of Citrix MetaFrame, and Chapter 13 will cover the installation of the applications. All three chapters will provide installation steps in the form of checklists. Our checklists will include not only the steps to installing and configuring the software, but also explanations of pertinent options and their effects, indications where additional configuration may be required, information on hotfixes and service packs, and general information we think is necessary in order to deploy the technology effectively.

We will assume, for the purposes of this chapter, that the reader is familiar with the basics of installing and configuring, and with administering Windows 2000 Server.

Although we provide detailed, step-by-step instructions, we are not advocating that every server be built from scratch. Rather, we will also discuss how to use various tools to effectively create additional servers from a standard image. This standard image will be accessed from an application deployment server or CD-ROM to automatically build additional servers in the server farm.

Caution

Many of the suggestions and recommendations in this chapter involve making changes directly to the registry.

We recommend that readers adhere to the following safety guidelines before making any of these changes to the registry:

• Become familiar with REGEDT32 and REGEDIT (REGEDIT is fully functional in Windows 2003, but REGEDT32 is required in some instances in Windows 2000 due to deficiencies with REGEDIT).

• Always make backups to the key being changed with the REGEDT32 "save key" feature. This will allow you to go back to a previous state and possibly save hours of rebuilding as you create your first "gold image."

• Never change the registry on a production server or on a server you can't otherwise afford to lose.

We have tested these changes on several production systems, but it isn't possible to test them on all hardware platforms and configuration settings. As such, we recommend strongly that you follow the pilot and beta methodology and thoroughly test these changes before relying on them in a production SBC environment.