Windows 7 Thin Client

[gopher_1999]

Hi.

 

To try and get some more life out of some older laptops we are looking at a Windows 7 Thin Client. Has anyone had any experience of this? Especially over wireless.

[joewalton02]

I am interested in this also..

[joewalton02]

I am interested in this also...

[TheScarfedOne]

Shameless plug here (Im a Systems Manager before anyone hits Report Post :-p)... doing this at the moment with Windows Thin PC, which is Windows 7 cut down to use as a Thin client. Posts on my blog about setting it up with RDP.

[BHMS]

I use XP as thin client as it's lighter on resources. Pretty easy to setup either way, this works for 7 as well. Set your windows thin client up with 1 admin user, no password, off domain so it automatically logs in or some other auto-login method if you prefer to secure it with a password. Make your rdp file and then make this small VBS script:

 

Option Explicit

'On Error Resume Next

 

Dim objShell

 

Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

 

Do

If (objShell.AppActivate("Remote Desktop") = False) Then

objShell.Run "mstsc.exe c:\default.rdp"

WScript.Sleep 5000

Else

WScript.Sleep 3000

End If

Loop

 

This script assumes your placing your rdp file default.rdp in C:\, edit as appropriate. Then you need to:

 

run regedit

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

 

Change shell string to:

 

wscript

 

Congratulations you have a windows thin client that relaunches on logout/timeout. Only drawback is without the shell you don't have a shutdown button so you have to tap the power button on your PC to shutdown. I use a remote shutdown script for these at the end of the school day which repeats every 2h after. CTRL + ALT + DELETE works if you need to do other stuff, it opens task manager so you can launch regedit again to set shell back to explorer.exe or just launch explorer.exe but this tends to open a My Computer window only.

[TheScarfedOne]

The advantage of having them on domain is that they are GP'd and patched and managed as part of the main system. You can push all RDP Client settings in GP. The user in our case is a restricted network user. Plus... we use SCCM to build, manage and patch across the site. WTPC builds/deploys in the same way as 7. Ive since found that I could have changed the Shell in GP rather than the first build vbs which tattoos some parts of the registry.

[BHMS]

How do you manage the autologin for your restricted network user?

[alastair]

I suggest you search for shelaunch.exe it's an executable that reads from an ini file, you can specify up to 5 buttons one of them being shutdown. create and rdp file with all your settings.

 

here is my shelaunch.ini file:

 

;See SheLaunch.sam for information regarding this file

;

 

[settings]

totalbuttons=2

 

[1]

title=Log On

command=c:\windows\system32\mstsc.exe

param1=c:\[path to rdp file]\connect.rdp

autorun=1

 

[2]

title=Shutdown

command=shutdown

 

I've attached the whole application, unzip it, copy to somewhere on the thin client HD, then change the shell reg key to the shelaunch exe. I recommend also changing the registry keys for noclose , etc so that users can't mess with things. the keys I set are:

 

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\autoadminlogon"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DefaultUserName"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DefaultPassword"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions\NoBrowserClose"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DefaultDomainName"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions\NoFileOpen"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions\NoFindFiles"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions\NoViewSource"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions\NoBrowserSaveAs"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions\NoBrowserContextMenu"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions\NoOpenInNewWnd"

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\IEDevTools\Disabled"

 

I wrote a VBS script to change these reg keys and copy the shelaunch to the local computer, that way i can run one vbs script and it's all done for me. I also wrote a script to undo all the changes, but I had to use remote registry to change the shell back to explorer.exe to log on locally to run it. all in all a very good solution.

 

SheLaunch.zip

[LANWrench]

alastair,

 

Would you be kind enough to post your script?

 

Thanks!