Neowin Forums > Windows 2003 Server Questions...

Craig Brass

Apr 1 2005, 13:06

Hi,

I wanna know if its possible to do the following with Windows 2003 Server :-

1. Add user accounts on the server and then users can login via windows XP Workstations.
2. Possible to have all the clients to have certain drives mapped automatically as they login.
3. Possible to have groups for users, like admins, staff, general users and set them differant permissions.
4. Install programs on the server and allow workstations to load them up without having to install the programs on each comuter.

Yours,
Craig Brass

BudMan

Apr 1 2005, 13:33

1) Yes (needs to be XP pro to join the domain)
2) yes - this and much more is possible (login script)
3) yes - kind of the point of a domain

4) hmmm - yes you can run terminal server, and users can run applications on the server using a terminal session.. Keep in mind this a sep lic, and any software - say office that is run this way has to be licensed for ALL users that can access it.. YOu can not just buy 1 copy of office, and let 50 users run it using terminal server.

terminal services info;
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003...es/default.mspx

Ilyes

Apr 1 2005, 14:14

QUOTE(BudMan @ Apr 1 2005, 13:33)

1) Yes (needs to be XP pro to join the domain)
2) yes - this and much more is possible (login script)
3) yes - kind of the point of a domain

4) hmmm - yes you can run terminal server, and users can run applications on the server using a terminal session.. Keep in mind this a sep lic, and any software - say office that is run this way has to be licensed for ALL users that can access it.. YOu can not just buy 1 copy of office, and let 50 users run it using terminal server.

terminal services info;
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003...es/default.mspx
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Budman did a good job of covering all of your questions, but I have an addition for #4. Depending on the kind of application, you may be able to run these programs right off the server but remember, any big application such as office/photoshop/cad program/whatever need to be installed and have the proper registry entries and dll's on the local windows installation. What you could do is install programs via MSI to automate the installation process at install to suit your exact needs.

Hope that helps...

BudMan

Apr 1 2005, 14:22

cultavix - good point about just running the exe off the server.. Yes depending on the program, you could just run it off the share directly.. Might not be a very FAST way to do it (depending on the app).. For some reason I keyed in the word "install" in his question - most (not all) applications that require an install might not function in this fashion..

Craig Brass

Apr 1 2005, 14:26

QUOTE(BudMan @ Apr 1 2005, 15:22)

cultavix - good point about just running the exe off the server.. Yes depending on the program, you could just run it off the share directly.. Might not be a very FAST way to do it (depending on the app).. For some reason I keyed in the word "install" in his question - most (not all) applications that require an install might not function in this fashion..
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Hmmm, what if some programs I use are not MSI's? I like the way Novell does it with Novell Delivered Applications. As soon as the user clicks an app, it installs it on their machine and in future times it just loads directly from the machine. No way to do that with Windows 2003 as all I can say to Novell is yuck

BudMan

Apr 1 2005, 17:57

You can deploy applications with group policy, so no need to go to every machine and install something, etc.. Users does not have to do anything.