Chapter 7: Scripting

Overview

This chapter deals with terminal server scripting . It includes not only the default command shells , but also different extension options. You will learn about the following:

• Details of shell s commands and relevant scripts

• The shell extension offered by the KiXtart command interpreter

• Windows Script Host functions and their usage on a terminal server

• The most up-to-date possibilities that .NET Common Language Runtime offers for logon procedures

Experienced Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 administrators might find information and techniques here that they already know. Scripting always used to be an important concept for managing large Microsoft Windows NT environments and was thus a well-established mechanism. The technology was improved for Windows 2000 and was well-documented in many help files and publications . For Windows Server 2003, including the .NET Framework and its powerful options, even more scripting options are available. Therefore, this chapter summarizes the most pertinent information, always with a view to terminal server operation.

Important  

Scripts can be a very powerful administration mechanism for terminal servers. However, scripts require a high degree of maintenance when the newest versions need to be installed on each terminal server in a large farm. Therefore, when planning scripts, bear in mind that the scripts might need to be started from a network share, as well.