Introduction

As some old timers in the computer field have said, Terminal Services is a throwback feature. In the beginning days of computing, users had a green-screen dumb terminal sitting on their desk, which was used to connect to a mainframe somewhere down the hall or across the country. All the processing was done in that far away place, and all the users saw was the simple user interface presented to them.

Well, times have changed, and here we are going back to the future. Users are now sitting in front of a pretty multicolored screen, with the actual processing done either down the hall or somewhere across the country. Although having a PC on everyone's desk isn't totally a bad idea, it costs time and money to support each individual PC. By moving all processing back to the server room, most companies are able to cut down on desktop visits and maintenance because all application installation, configuration, and patching are performed in a central location.

In this chapter we will look at the advantages and disadvantages of Terminal Services, along with guidance on how to configure and maintain it.