Navigation
The Book   Table of Content   Preface   About This Book   Book Index Part I – A Beginner's Guide to Terminal Services 1 Terminal Services Overview 2 System Installation 3 Licensing 4 System Configuration 5 User Access and Client Software 6 Application Installation 7 System Administration and Operation 8 Server Sizing and Scalability Part II – An Expert's Guide to Terminal Services 9 Terminal Server Internals 10 Network Planning and High Availability 11 User Environment 12 Access and Security 13 Printing 14 Registry 15 Scripting 16 Web Technologies Part III – Terminal Services Complementary Concepts 17 Third Party Extension Products 18 Desktop and Application Virtualization 19 Deployment Automation 20 Resource and Security Management 21 Testing and Quality Assurance 22 Optimization and Performance Tuning 23 Project Methodology 24 Terminal Services API My Profile ... About this Web Site ... Benny's Biography ... Presentations 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004 and earlier

	Awards

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services

Preface

Posted by Benny Tritsch on September 13, 2008

 

This book deals with terminal servers as central execution platforms for Windows-based applications. Users can access these terminal servers using clients that do not necessarily have to be overly "intelligent". This might not sound terribly spectacular and might even remind you of the "good old days" of mainframes and host computing. You might also be wondering if the author of this online book is an advocate of the old technologies who is seizing an opportunity to rebuff the current client/server concept. Quite the contrary! Terminal servers sort of adopt an idea that has matured and developed out of the mainframe world and strengthens the client/server model leading it to the state-of-the-art concept of "presentation virtualization".

Now you may ask yourself what qualifies me to write about terminal servers. Here's a short answer. In 1995, I first heard about a special multi-user variant of Microsoft Windows NT. It was called WinCenter Pro and, through integrating additional functions, it allowed multiple users to log on simultaneously. It was not necessarily easy to configure and run a server with a multi-user Windows NT installed. The amount of time that I needed to set up (and understand) a stable system was quite substantial. Other administrators reported similar experiences, and the idea took root to modify the hands-on training seminars that I had been conducting since 1996 on Windows NT administration to include the multi-user aspect.

These seminars became surprisingly successful; they were quickly adapted to Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server, Terminal Server Edition, and Windows 2000 Terminal Services as soon as they became available. In view of the success of these seminars I started writing books about Windows Terminal Services for the German-speaking market, all published by Microsoft Press. The first book covered Windows NT 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. It was an unexpected and huge success; a second terminal server book followed when Windows 2000 was launched. The next book I wrote in 2003 became an international edition–in English, German and Russian–and described Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services.

Due to the large international audience I reached with my books, my training classes and my presentations, I have received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for Windows Server - Terminal Server in each year since 2004. In 2006 I was a winner of the Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) charter award.

Over the last years, the world of technology has become more agile. This is particularly true for computers and software. For this simple reason I decided that my new book on Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services needed to be started as an online edition, allowing me to more dynamically modify its content according to readers' requirements.