Preparing a Server for Application Installation

Preparing a Server for Application Installation

Terminal Servers or MetaFrame servers are delicate. You treat them right, and they will be very good to you; you treat them bad, and they will find a way to make your life miserable. For this reason, properly preparing a server for an application installation is very important. Installing an application on a MetaFrame server is a little different from installing it on a regular desktop for the simple reason that the install on the MetaFrame server would have to be primed and ready to service multiple simultaneous users on the same box.

Enabling Terminal Server

First, make sure the server is in Application Server mode if you are using Windows 2000, or if you are using Windows Server 2003, make sure Terminal Server is enabled. This setting ensures that the server understands its role, which is to provide multiple simultaneous users access to applications on the server. This setting also allows users to log in to the server with their domain accounts. If this mode is not enabled, the server is configured in the Remote Administration mode, which allows only two simultaneous connections to the server. It allows these two connections only to members of the Administrators group .

Install Versus Execute Mode

The second step in installing an application on a MetaFrame server is setting the mode in which the server is placed. You can choose one of two modes: Install or Execute. Because a MetaFrame server can host multiple users who may make changes to the same application running on it, you need to alert the server that it should monitor the installation of the application and record the settings and changes that it is making to the server. By doing so, you provide each user who logs in a certain privacy and the opportunity to make changes to an application without affecting other users.

You can tell the server to monitor all changes being made during the install of an application in two ways. You can select Add New Programs in Add or Remove Programs from the Control Panel to install the application. This method is the graphical user interface (GUI) equivalent of entering change user /install on the command line. If you decide to use the command line instead of the GUI, you need to complete a two-step process. First, put the server in Install mode, which tells it to monitor the changes by the application. Then install the application. After the installation is complete, switch back to Execute mode, which tells the server that it is ready to execute the application installed. To do this from a command line, you can type change user /execute . The advantage of using the GUI instead of the command line is that using the GUI from the Control Panel places the server in the Install mode automatically and, after the install is complete, switches the server back into Execute mode.

Note

When you use the command line to set the server mode, it is very important to remember to put the server back in Execute mode after you install the application. You should not log off a server or reboot it before putting it back into Execute mode. Doing so tells the server to stop recording the application installation process. You should also know that after you log off or reboot a server, it is automatically placed in Execute mode.