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Accessing the TS

By now, as you had to connect to your terminal server to make sure it was running and to get familiar with Process Monitor as per above, I am sure you know how to connect to the TS.

But as there are a couple of ways to do that, I think it is a good idea to explain what each client is, what they do and how to use them.

Full client

By full client I mean the full, Win32 client that comes with Windows XP or Windows Vista (the famous MSTSC.exe one). Of course there are different versions of such client (for RDP5.0, RDP5.2, RDP6.0 and now RDP6.1).

At this time the latest RDP client can be downloaded at:
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/925876
As you already know, to access a terminal server using this client is a very simple process. Just launch MSTSC (go to Start | Run | MSTSC and press enter) and enter the IP address or FQDN of your TS. If you click on ‘Options’ all the available options (drive mapping, printers, etc) will appear.
TerminalServicesAtoZ32.jpg

Fig. 34
Remote Desktop Client

There are also some command-line options (like /console to connect to the ‘console’ on your 2003 box). Just type mstsc /? to see all the available options.
TerminalServicesAtoZ33.jpg

Fig. 35
MSTSC command line options
This is the client in use on Windows XP Embedded thin clients and on Windows Server 2003 as well. Of course they may have different build numbers (i.e. 5.2.3790.1830, etc) but we usually refer to them as the ‘Win32’ client.

Web client

A couple months after releasing Windows 2000 back in February, 2000, Microsoft released an ActiveX version of the RDP client. For the first time users were able to connect to a simple web page and from there, with the ActiveX client automatically loaded on their machines, connect to a terminal server anywhere on their networks or on the Internet (to see how popular this became simply do a search on Google for “allinurl:tsweb/default.htm”; the results are impressive!).
TerminalServicesAtoZ34.jpg

Fig. 36
TSWEB default web page
Although this is indeed a neat way to access your terminal servers, this also mislead people to thinking they could connect to their terminal servers through a single port (http:80 or https:443); in reality, tsweb was simply a mechanism to deliver the RDP client through a web browser and to provide a front end for the client options (i.e. username, server name, resolution, etc) but the actual RDP connection was still going through port TCP 3389 so at the end two ports were required and as of today, this is still the case with Windows Server 2003.
Windows Server 2008 does have a mechanism to use a single port for RDP access, over https.
ι Again, remember that tsweb will not give you RDP over a single port like 80 or 443; even though your users may be able to access this port through their web browser, they still need to be able to reach the terminal servers through port TCP 3389. And of course I do not need to mention this page is NOT compatible with Linux and/or Mac OS X as it requires an ActiveX control (Windows only) to be loaded...

Setting up TSWEB is quite simple actually; all you need is a working IIS server. Download the tsweb package directly from Microsoft at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e2ff8fb5-97ff-47bc-bacc-92283b52b310&displaylang=en

To setup tsweb:
  1. Download the package listed above and copy it to your IIS server.
  2. Double click tswebsetup.exe to start the installation.
  3. Click ‘Yes’ to install the tsweb package.
TerminalServicesAtoZ35.jpg
Fig. 37
Installing TSWEB
  1. Click ‘Yes’ to accept the license agreement.
TerminalServicesAtoZ36.jpg
Fig. 38
TSWEB license agreement
  1. Select the folder on your IIS server where you want TSWEB to be installed. I would recommend another folder as you could see on Google the amount of companies using the default page and exposing their infrastructure details on the internet!
TerminalServicesAtoZ37.jpg
Fig. 39
TSWEB default installation folder
  1. Once the installation finishes it will ask if you want to read the release notes.
TerminalServicesAtoZ38.jpg
Fig. 40
TSWEB release notes
  1. If you followed all the steps above you should see this window.
TerminalServicesAtoZ39.jpg
Fig. 41
Successful installation
Now all you need to do is to point your users to your web server and they will see the default TSWEB webpage. If they are connecting over the internet, remember you will need to make sure your TS can be reached (port TCP 3389 open) and that they use the TS FQDN or external IP address to connect!

Other clients


Of course the next question is ‘what if my clients do not run Windows? Can they still connect to my terminal servers?’. The answer for this question is ‘Yes, they can’.

The only non-Windows platform supported directly by Microsoft is Mac OS X. A native OS X client (universal binary!) does exist and is available for download on the Microsoft website.

You can get it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx

For Linux the most common client is RDesktop, a free, open source alternative. As RDP was a proprietary protocol until March, 2008, all non-official RDP clients lacked support for some sort of feature (i.e. proper serial port redirection) and RDesktop was one of these. The same is valid for some Java implementations out there. Therefore if your most important requirement is a fully compatible RDP client, as of today your only alternative is to use the full Win32 one.

But this did not prevent other companies to develop RDP clients and replacements for the desktop OS with a built-in RDP client, basically turning PCs into Thin Clients with a very light OS that can be loaded on the machine over the network (using PXE boot) or even from USB drives or CDs. One of the most impressive solutions out there is the 2X ThinClientServer. It not only allows you to boot PCs with its own streamlined OS but can handle real thin clients as well. All this from a nice web based console.

ι Note: I am not mentioning the 2X solution because they sponsored this guide. I have actually tried many similar solutions and years ago had my own distribution to do the same. But none of them, including mine, had all the centralized management features on top of a pretty web console. Add to that the fact they have a free version (the unsupported PXES one) and I still think there is no other solution like this on the market as of today. I know this may change in the future, like with any other software solution out there. But as of today they are ‘The Solution’.
You can check them out at http://www.2x.com.

It is worth mentioning that when using thin clients (small computer like devices with little local processing power and designed to be used as a ‘dumb’ terminal, connected all the time to a terminal server) you must pay extra attention on your requirements. As the OS on these devices vary (i.e. Windows XP Embedded, Windows CE, Linux, etc) the RDP client on these will not be the same across the board; this means certain features may not be fully supported on the device depending on the OS it is running. If your main concern/requirement is 100% compatibility with the latest RDP version out there your best bet is to use devices running Windows XP Embedded.