Introduction

Welcome to the Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Resource Kit! This is a detailed technical resource for planning, deploying, and running Microsoft Terminal Services. Because so many features of Terminal Services are brand new, this book is valuable both for those completely new to Terminal Services and those who have used Terminal Services in previous versions of Microsoft Windows.

Within this resource kit, you’ll find in-depth information about the improvements in Terminal Services introduced in Windows Server 2008. This book combines underlying architectural concepts with practical hands-on instructions that allow you to set up a working Terminal Services ecosystem, understand why it’s working, and give you some guidance about how to fix it when it’s not. You’ll also find detailed information and task-based guidance on managing all aspects of Terminal Services, including deploying terminal servers, integrating Terminal Services roles with other key parts of the Windows Server 2008 operating system, and extending the reach of the terminal servers to outside the corporate network. Finally, the companion media includes additional tools and documentation that you can use to manage and troubleshoot Terminal Services servers.

Although we mention some third-party tools in the course of this book (and some Terminal Services independent software vendors [ISVs] have kindly agreed to make tools available through the companion media), this book is fundamentally about running a terminal server farm using only the tools found in the operating system. You can do what we’ve done here using only Windows Server 2008. Nor do we get into extensive discussion of any of the third-party tools that many people use with native Terminal Services. Citrix’s XenApp, for example, is management software in use on many high-complexity server farms, but we don’t discuss it here because it’s not included with the operating system.