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I recently installed several powerful Windows Server 2003 machines. Most of the client machines on the network are running Windows 98. The client users now require access to applications that only run on Windows XP or Server 2003.

I feel that the time and expense required to upgrade the machines to Windows XP would be too great. I decide to implement Terminal Services on the new servers. To meet the network's requirements, I decide to install the necessary applications on the servers, and then connect the clients to the servers with Terminal Services. The clients will run the applications directly on the servers. In most cases, several users will run the applications simultaneously.

Now I need to describe the steps that I must take to install and configure Terminal Services to work in this scenario? Can someone give us the rundown on the steps of this?

Chris S
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April Moore
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    WHAT? You have WINDOWS 98 CLIENTS? WHAAAAAAAAAAAT? Whoever made the decision to stick w/ Win98 should be ejected out of the atmosphere in the direction of the Sun. – MDMarra Aug 08 '11 at 15:17
  • @MarkM Making sure, of course, to account for the speed of rotation of the Earth, as well as adjusting for orbital velocity around the Sun... – Holocryptic Aug 08 '11 at 15:20
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    @Holo - Of course, I plan properly for my projects... – MDMarra Aug 08 '11 at 15:21
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    invest the time, upgrade to something supported – Sgaduuw Aug 08 '11 at 15:21
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    @April, I realize many of these responses are sarcastic and/or critical. Please do take away at least a few words of advice that your environment is extremely overdue for some upgrades. Support costs for computer environments increases exponentially with age. You must either be spending inordinate amounts of time maintaining those systems, or they are being left unmaintained (which likely means unsecured, unstable, unrecoverable in case of disaster, the list goes on). In either case, you'd be running much less efficiently than what's possible; likely to be affecting employee productivity... – Chris S Aug 08 '11 at 17:20
  • I second Chris' comments – Holocryptic Aug 08 '11 at 17:28

3 Answers3

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Have you tested this configuration first?

Some applications work okay with terminal services, others just keel over. More than that you haven't said how many clients there are that will connect to the terminal server, so you may run into resource issues if you overload the server. Plus you need to train people how to use terminal services ("Why can't I just click this to make it work?") and they're using really really outdated and no longer security-patched systems, making this installation kind of a ticking timebomb, IT-wise.

Supposing for a moment that you really really really can't get those upgraded (preferably to Windows 7 now, since XP is on the winding-down end of security upgrades) you should test your application setup and what kind of load it's going to put on the server to make sure this can even work.

Primarily I'd strongly suggest reevaluating the possibility of upgrading the systems/OS to something with better modern support, or you're asking for management headaches down the road (if you don't already have them...)

Bart Silverstrim
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    I agree. Keeping around an ancient OS is asking for virus/worm infection. If you can't upgrade the workstation hardware and the server(s) can handle the load, then consider making the machines essentially "thin" clients by installing a flavor of Linux with Windows RDP support (most GUI distributions have this). – Chris Nava Aug 08 '11 at 15:30
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Here's my $.02. Take it for what it's worth.

First, it's way past time to upgrade the clients. There is no earthly reason why your clients should be running Win 98. Upgrading to XP is LONG overdue, and frankly they should be running Win7 at this point. You're trying to save money in the wrong places. A lot has happened in the last 13 years, and it's time to get caught up.

That said, installing and configuring TS is not something that can be done in this kind of setting. What you really need is to hire a consultant that can come onsite and work with you to figure it out. And if the consultant doesn't come in and recommend some serious network upgrades, then he's a failure of a consultant.

Holocryptic
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If you're running W98 (not even SE!) and asking this kind of question, you really should just hire someone that has a clue. Sticking with 98 was strike 1, using server 2003 was strike 2, having to ask how to configure it all was strike 3.

MDMarra
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