Re: Remote Desktop Application
Chuck,
I have over 100 users accessing remote desktops, either via Terminal Services to individual workstations, or to TS desktops on several TS servers. FYI - Remote Desktop Connection(RDC) is Microsoft's built in remote access solutions for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 PCs. It uses Terminal Service technology to make individual connections to end user PCs or servers. A Terminal Server is an physical Windows server that utilizes Terminal Service technology and comes standard with the operating system. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, you need to purchase licenses for users to connect to a Terminal Server.
In your shoes, the first solution I would try is to get remote users securely connected to their work PCs using the free version of logmein, if the company will allow this. It's free, does an excellent job at managing printer redirection, and can be implemented in under 10 minutes per user. I prefer this to TS for individual connections to a PC because it does not require port forwarding thru the firewall, and I do not believe that TS is 100% secure over the Internet, but that's just my opinion.
If the company does not wish to permit remote access to individual PCs, then using a MS Terminal Server solution would work quite well. There are many reports of remote printing issues in Terminal Server setups, but they can usually be fixed by using Microsoft's universal print drivers for TS, or by installing an excellent product named Simplify Suite, which is designed to provide remedies for some of TS' quirks.
In any event, the manner in which the company wishes the users to connect is the first thing that needs to be determined. After that, any of the methods I've described should be fairly simple to implement...
EBM
Chuck,
I have over 100 users accessing remote desktops, either via Terminal Services to individual workstations, or to TS desktops on several TS servers. FYI - Remote Desktop Connection(RDC) is Microsoft's built in remote access solutions for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 PCs. It uses Terminal Service technology to make individual connections to end user PCs or servers. A Terminal Server is an physical Windows server that utilizes Terminal Service technology and comes standard with the operating system. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, you need to purchase licenses for users to connect to a Terminal Server.
In your shoes, the first solution I would try is to get remote users securely connected to their work PCs using the free version of logmein, if the company will allow this. It's free, does an excellent job at managing printer redirection, and can be implemented in under 10 minutes per user. I prefer this to TS for individual connections to a PC because it does not require port forwarding thru the firewall, and I do not believe that TS is 100% secure over the Internet, but that's just my opinion.
If the company does not wish to permit remote access to individual PCs, then using a MS Terminal Server solution would work quite well. There are many reports of remote printing issues in Terminal Server setups, but they can usually be fixed by using Microsoft's universal print drivers for TS, or by installing an excellent product named Simplify Suite, which is designed to provide remedies for some of TS' quirks.
In any event, the manner in which the company wishes the users to connect is the first thing that needs to be determined. After that, any of the methods I've described should be fairly simple to implement...
EBM
Comment