Ric_ Posted July 5, 2011 Report Posted July 5, 2011 Has anyone lese taken a look at Micorosft Windows ThinPC yet? From the website at Windows Thin PC by Microsoft | Windows Enterprise ... Windows Thin PC enables customers to repurpose existing PCs as thin clients by providing a smaller footprint, locked down version of Windows 7. Personally, I think it looks just like a basic install of Windows 7. The 'small footprint' is over 3GB of hard disk space before trying to strip anything out. Unless they are talking about memory footprint... my VM has 512MB of RAM and it is running fine but I can't say I've tried to run Windows 7 with 512MB RAM. I guess without running any apps it would work. I was hoping for a convenient method of locking down the system... it looks like you're left to do that via GPO though. At the present time, Windows Fundamentals with RDC 7.0 seems to offer more than enough functionality in a much smaller footprint.
Norphy Posted July 5, 2011 Report Posted July 5, 2011 I think the main advantage is that if you're using a Hyper-V based VDI system, ThinPC will be able to take advantage of all of the RemoteFX goodness that comes with it whereas anything running on an XP based system won't. Otherwise I think you're broadly correct.
SYNACK Posted July 5, 2011 Report Posted July 5, 2011 Norphy is right, as far as I can see. You can run full Windows 7 with 512MB of RAM but it does bog down really quickly with that little.
pritchardavid Posted July 5, 2011 Report Posted July 5, 2011 Just tested this this moring on a eeepc 4g laptop (4gb ssd) installed and left 700mb, could have never done this on a full version of Windows 7
Cache Posted July 5, 2011 Report Posted July 5, 2011 I'm thinking of trying it on an old pc which I can't for the life of me figure out how to get thinstation working on it, although suspect it might be to old to cope with it
andrew-virtusolve Posted July 5, 2011 Report Posted July 5, 2011 Have a few trial clients for testing, but we struggle to find a specific use-case, beyond having an OS to use that is lightweight and works with all the existing system management tools - but then isn't the point of a thin platform being as small a footprint as possible, most of the time we want an OS capable of running either RDP, PCoIP or HDX protocols and little more, the problem with Thin PC is .... it's still a little thick, when compared to the likes of thinstation or a wyse OS... Hardware Requirements below for reference: • 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) • 1 GB RAM, 4 GB available hard disk space • DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or later version driver
TheScarfedOne Posted July 5, 2011 Report Posted July 5, 2011 Using it in our test environment at the moment and its performing rather well. I do agree with @Ric in some ways though FLP was easier to configure to auto logon, launch RDP etc. I will be posting up all our setup on my blog tomorrow. I had to do some custom scripting and jigging to get it playing nicely. There is still one bit that is bugging me - the timeout on the logon screen. Ive got it sorted for now by having the RDP running as a unkillable taks in kiosk/shell mode. It just keeps relaunching the RDP file if it closes.
SYNACK Posted July 7, 2011 Report Posted July 7, 2011 Does this work for the timeout issue? Windows 7 Woes: Remote Login Timeout | NComputing
Gilleen Posted July 8, 2011 Report Posted July 8, 2011 I've started to look at Windows Thin PC here, just as a side project. The feature that is looking interesting at the moment is the "enhanced write filter", its a feature from their embedded versions. While the documentation says office apps and such are not to be installed, I have installed office, added computer to the domain, updated it all and enabled the filter. The end result is a near indestructable netbook for use by people that break the unbreakable in normal conditions. I dont think we will ever move forwards on the idea, it is a nice thing to keep at the side for if something like that is needed in future. (Thinking of "cybercafe" style desktops)
TheScarfedOne Posted July 8, 2011 Report Posted July 8, 2011 (edited) Right, an update. It works a treat, and ive updated my blog with how ive got it set up. On the logon timeout issue - will have a go at that and let you know. What Ive done is set the WTPC to autologon, and changed the shell to be RDP, and set it to run in kiosk mode using a third party free app. This makes the process unkillable (and make sure you gpo disable task manager)... all that happens is when the session is not logged in the client will keep cycling. May not be too pretty, but it works fine. Edited July 8, 2011 by TheScarfedOne Added some extra info
Cache Posted July 9, 2011 Report Posted July 9, 2011 (edited) @TheScarfedOne Do you get prompted about the RDP file and the publisher and do your drives auto mount (or are you not automounting USB drives)? I had a quick play (admittedly not in a huge ammount of detail) at the end of the week but kept getting prompted about the publisher of the rDP file and memory pens wouldn't automount (but I do need to go back and play properly) Edited July 9, 2011 by Cache
Ric_ Posted July 9, 2011 Author Report Posted July 9, 2011 On the logon timeout issue - will have a go at that and let you know. What Ive done is set the WTPC to autologon, and changed the shell to be RDP, and set it to run in kiosk mode using a third party free app. This makes the process unkillable (and make sure you gpo disable task manager)... all that happens is when the session is not logged in the client will keep cycling. May not be too pretty, but it works fine. That is horribly resource intensive on your terminal server. You are better having a single icon on the desktop named Logon... click it and the logon window appears... much better.
localzuk Posted July 9, 2011 Report Posted July 9, 2011 That is horribly resource intensive on your terminal server. You are better having a single icon on the desktop named Logon... click it and the logon window appears... much better. It isn't very resource intensive at all - we have 80 thin clients behaving in this exact manner and the resources used before anyone logs in is barely even noticeable.
CHR1S Posted October 20, 2011 Report Posted October 20, 2011 Sorry to dig up an old thread but where did you download WTPC from, I cant seem to find it on the link provided.
bodminman Posted October 20, 2011 Report Posted October 20, 2011 Sorry to dig up an old thread but where did you download WTPC from, I cant seem to find it on the link provided. I thought the only way you got access to WTPC was when you had a volume licence agreement with MS. Somewhere on your agreement pages on the MS site I think you will find the product, under Software Assurance I think. Please correct me if I am wrong. 1
CHR1S Posted October 20, 2011 Report Posted October 20, 2011 Didn't think of the obvious thing! Thanks Ill check there.
TheScarfedOne Posted October 20, 2011 Report Posted October 20, 2011 Yes, WTPC is in Volume Licencing Service Centre, under Software Assurance Benefits.
danielrostron Posted December 20, 2012 Report Posted December 20, 2012 Sorry to resurrect an old thread, can anyone assist further with getting a ThinPC install to function more as a true thin client?
danielrostron Posted December 20, 2012 Report Posted December 20, 2012 Does anyone have a working link to Shelly and how to use it aswell? I can't seem to find anything online?
localzuk Posted December 20, 2012 Report Posted December 20, 2012 Sorry to resurrect an old thread, can anyone assist further with getting a ThinPC install to function more as a true thin client? Define 'true thin client'? Thin clients come in all sorts of forms - with things like App-V having application virtualisation but local internet explorer, or a full shell replacement style so you just end up with the RDP connection only, or anywhere inbetween. The way I set ours up was to create an account, setup an rdp connection shortcut, put it on the desktop, configure as desired, including using local policy settings to restrict things, and make it auto-logon to that account. You could also use something like Deep Freeze to further lock it down too.
danielrostron Posted December 20, 2012 Report Posted December 20, 2012 Arthur - thanks for the upload Is there any documentation anyway as to how I actually use Shelly? localzuk - I was thinking more towards a full shell replacement so that it would be easy for end users to log on to a server. I've managed to get the machine to auto login with a domain account through GPO, and have also got MSTSC to open as the shell instead of Explorer but I'd prefer it if the MSTSC that opened was from a custom RDP file I have created. I tried to specify the RDP file in the 'Custom User Interface' GPO but it doesn't seem to want to open it. I'd like to incorporate Shelly so that if the user closed the RDP window it would re-open - and also give some sort of ability to shut down the machine altogether at the end of the day!
localzuk Posted December 20, 2012 Report Posted December 20, 2012 Arthur - thanks for the upload Is there any documentation anyway as to how I actually use Shelly? localzuk - I was thinking more towards a full shell replacement so that it would be easy for end users to log on to a server. I've managed to get the machine to auto login with a domain account through GPO, and have also got MSTSC to open as the shell instead of Explorer but I'd prefer it if the MSTSC that opened was from a custom RDP file I have created. I tried to specify the RDP file in the 'Custom User Interface' GPO but it doesn't seem to want to open it. I'd like to incorporate Shelly so that if the user closed the RDP window it would re-open - and also give some sort of ability to shut down the machine altogether at the end of the day! You should be able to use a vbs script instead of mstsc - so you could have the script launch mstsc with a shortcut .rdp file.
danielrostron Posted December 20, 2012 Report Posted December 20, 2012 (edited) You should be able to use a vbs script instead of mstsc - so you could have the script launch mstsc with a shortcut .rdp file. From the GPO? I did try specifying a VBS file for the Custom User Interface GP but it didn't seem to want to load that. This is the VBS script I had (found it online and modified it slightly).... Set shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") shell.Run "mstsc.exe /multimon C:\EB.rdp", 1, true shell.Run "logoff" C:\EB.rdp being the custom RDP file I'd setup. (would it be possible to have that read from a network location?) Also does the mstsc.exe need to be a full path like "%windir%/system32/mstsc.exe...." or is just mstsc.exe OK? Does that look right? I stored the script in a network share and pointed the GP to it but it didn't seem to play ball, it loads up the mstsc.exe client fine when I just specify the path of mstsc.exe in the GP, but not when I put the VBS script path in. Edited December 20, 2012 by danielrostron adding too
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