Common vs. unique login for terminal services

[BBrian]

In the lab here, using 2003 terminal services, each station must log in using its own username, i.e. lab1, lab2... If two students both log in with the same username, trying to open a file on one computer might result in it appearing on the other comptuer's screen. Is it possible to have a common login and avoid this happening?

 

Also, Firefox refuses to open on more than one station using the same username. I think I'm using the Frontmotion msi because I had trouble getting it to open even in two different userspaces on the terminal server. I anticipate problems with Open Office too. Any experience?

 

I'm moving to MS Office soon and will probably ditch Firefox at the same time. It's causing performance issues (i.e. sessions hanging) and I'm just getting my head around performance logging now.

[dhicks]

In the lab here, using 2003 terminal services, each station must log in using its own username, i.e. lab1, lab2...

 

That doesn't sound right - do you have a Domain Controller? Your users are supposed to log in with their username and password, not something dependant on the machine they happen to be on.

 

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David Hicks

[BBrian]

That doesn't sound right - do you have a Domain Controller? Your users are supposed to log in with their username and password, not something dependant on the machine they happen to be on.

 

Yes, regular AD setup. It's a primary school so the kids don't have their own username, I'm aiming for one generic "student" account.

 

I should've phrased that as each station needing a unique login rather than its own login.

[SimpleSi]

If your using one login/computer and very simple password complexity maybe it would be easier to just go the whole hog and just autologon the workstation with a unique username for that computer.

 

regards

 

Simon

[dhicks]

If your using one login/computer and very simple password complexity maybe it would be easier to just go the whole hog and just autologon the workstation with a unique username for that computer.

 

Can you do that for Terminal Services workstations? I know you set some registry values on a standard local Windows install, how do you do similar on a TS workstation?

 

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David Hicks

[BBrian]

If your using one login/computer and very simple password complexity maybe it would be easier to just go the whole hog and just autologon the workstation with a unique username for that computer.

 

I've 19 TS clients atm., only going to increase. I'd really like one account for them all. I'm going to upgrade to 2008 R2 soon, maybe the issue doesn't occur with it.

 

 

Can you do that for Terminal Services workstations? I know you set some registry values on a standard local Windows install, how do you do similar on a TS workstation

 

Our Igel thin clients can be set to auto log-in and MS's RDP client can save the password, too. I don't know how it might be done on the server itself. Maybe install Tweak UI powertoy for XP and watch the changes it makes when auto log-in is configured, then try replicate them on the server.

[dhicks]

Our Igel thin clients can be set to auto log-in and MS's RDP client can save the password, too.

 

Right, so all you need to do is make sure you have one user account for each thin client and have each thin client auto-login with its own user account. Having multiple workstations log in with the same username is always going to cause problems as the logins would share a Documents and Settings folder. If you wanted you could redirect each machine's user account's My Documents and Desktop folders so they all pointed to the same folder, if that's what you're trying to achive.

 

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David Hicks

[djm968]

Restrict Terminal Services Users to a Single Remote Session

 

In most cases there is no need for a single user to initiate multiple sessions on a Terminal Server. You can configure this setting by browsing to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Terminal Services\Terminal Server\Connections within your GPO.