Chrome book as thin client

[CapnPugwash]

In a Windows environment is it possible to use a Chrome book as a thin client?

Basically, boot up and point to Windows Server RDS ...

 

Anyone done this? Is it sensible?

 

I would rather leave the Chrome books as they are (we use O365, this should meet most users needs) and put an RDP link on the desktop for when they need to use other software...

[3s-gtech]

Seems totally obtuse to me - why buy Chromebooks in this case, especially as RDP solutions for them are thin on the ground or have a cost implication. Might as well have cheap Windows laptops.

[CapnPugwash]

Seems totally obtuse to me - why buy Chromebooks in this case, especially as RDP solutions for them are thin on the ground or have a cost implication. Might as well have cheap Windows laptops.

 

Yeah, agree absolutely. It IS obtuse. Part of the driver is Senior Management wanting the latest whizz bang devices & partly it's price.

To be totally honest I haven't done much research, we have a Windows network, we use O365 & we are tied into an OVS agreement so it doesn't make a great deal of sense to me...

[Lonix]

Part of the driver is Senior Management wanting the latest whizz bang devices & partly it's price.

 

I don't believe it! It's all lies!

 

No seriously though I completely believe it. We was tempted to look at Chromebooks but with our BYOD schemes being scrapped we don't have to. I didn't even need to persuade those above that enough was enough let's concentrate on buying IT that works and is fit for purpose. You may only need to spend a little bit more on Windows Laptops but surely that small % increase is worth it?

 

Not sure if you can get them to work properly in the way you want though.

 

We was in a similar situation where we got BYOD and people kept asking the questions of treating them like domain joined equipment. In the end Staff preferred to book out IT suites and we are now increasing our capacity... essentially doing a U-Turn on the latest gizmo. With our School aiming for outstanding we can't afford to have things that negatively impact on teaching and learning in anyway. It needs to work but with pretty much everything - quickly and easily.

[dhicks]

In a Windows environment is it possible to use a Chrome book as a thin client?

 

Your best option is probably to use a web-based RDP client. We use Ericom's AccessNow, which so far we've found to work very well, although I see that Guacamole is now an Apache project and, of course, free.

[rogerdnixon]

You can set a ChromeOS device to auto-boot into whatever app you like by setting it up as a kiosk mode device. We use AccessNow to allow access to a Windows desktop on ChromeOS (our main OS - so just needed for access to SIMS by staff mainly) which could easily be launched as a full screen web app. You would need to have Google Apps setup as this would require management licences to be able to do this to devices.

 

However, as already stated, this sort of misses the point of ChromeOS. If you want to use ChromeOS devices seriously, you should really have all your users on Google Apps and work in this ecosystem - we are a Google Reference School any happy to help if you need it.

[_techie_]

I think that maybe you are missing the point!

What are you trying to do, and what is the price entry point per device?

A reasonable Chromebook can be had for less than £170 inc management license ex VAT. Any Windows device (Lynx tablet for this price for example) for this price is slow, takes around 2 hours to build, join domain, "policy up", has poor battery life, won't run Windows 7, and has poor wireless with common drop outs causing issues, and takes a long time to boot from cold.

 

We have managed to utilise our existing Citrix infrastructure to get a device that:

Boots in seconds to a login screen (I am talking less than 15 seconds here from cold)

Has battery life that easily lasts all day

Is fast and responsive for the user with much better keyboard and trackpad.

Can commission a device from out of the box in less than a minute and deliver to the end user

Utilise our existing AD logins and passwords.

Easily provide Wordpad only in XenApp published Desktop for exams use without having to give a full desktop login, and save back to the network for backup of files etc.

 

Overall, I am perfectly happy with them :-)

[Dave_O]

Use managed Chromebooks logging in with federation services to get to O365 and Google tenancy without further need for authentication. Also use VMware Horizon blast (rather that RDP) on device to offer remote apps and full Windows desktops

[st-woodward-r]

Use managed Chromebooks logging in with federation services to get to O365 and Google tenancy without further need for authentication. Also use VMware Horizon blast (rather that RDP) on device to offer remote apps and full Windows desktops

 

Hmmm, this looks like a potential solution and will contact you directly if thats ok.