Axel

Bicky - What you ask is shown here :

look five posts up....!

I would suggest starting by loading W2012 or W2008r2 (free trial software from Mircosoft.com) onto a server/PC you already have lying around, then using either an existing PC or cheap (Ebay) thin client - connect to server with an RDP connection.... That will give you the base starting point (and certainly the lowest costing). Depending on how you find that as a solution you can then focus on the areas where you feel more attention is needed (ie performance, connecting over internet, cost, ease of management, application compatibilty?). There are many paths you can take from that point - but many schools find that solution (Terminal Services/RDS) is adequate, and is certainly lowest costing and least complex. Most other solutions take the above as a starting point, and the add software layers to give benefits in one area or another

Mike, Are you looking for a solution to this problem on the device you mention - or an alternative product that does give the option of this key combination being processed "locally" or "remotely" ? Matthew

Far be it from me to downplay thin-clients - but I was meaning get a laptop and configure to run RDS (or whatever) on boot - so would be a TC to all intents and purposes, and no need to ever push software out to it. Please keep us posted - it will be interesting to see how you get on with a dedicated laptop TC, especially costwise....

From a manufacturers point of view, due to scales of volume/manufacturing etc - it is very hard (impossible?) to make one that offers a price advantage against a cheap (PC) laptop, so not much motivation to develop in this direction... The companies who maybe could - are not motivated either - as they will be the main laptop sellers - so not much motivation to canibalise their existing market Maybe a generic Android tablet will offer a solution here ?

If you're genuinely interested here's a vid I made a couple of years ago on this subject : Multi-Media on RDP Thin client - YouTube (W2008 onwards supports recording over RDS)

check for duplicate IP addresses (even if you use DHCP)

You only have to follow the posts on here to see many unsatisfied VDI users... By contrast you hear about very few unhappy terminal services/Citrix users... Make of that what you will....! VDI is very fashionable right now - and the "industry" loves selling it as it means big bucks and high consultancy fees. (No one is scared of managing a terminal server - but a new VDI installation....?) I've been in the thin-client industry for 15 years - not much happened in the first 12 years (W2000, Citrix, W2003, W2008 etc) thin clients were seen as low cost, low maintenance devices for industries such as call centres and point of sale, data-entry and in many cases replacing dumb ascii VT type terminals. They were never billed as PC replacement devices - rather they filled a sizeable niche under "power" PC level requirements. Now it seems people are buying into all the benefits (easily done), jumping in with both feet, but not fully understanding the limitations, so end up disappointed. To make the disappointment more acute, some thin clients now cost as much as PCs, use same chipset & O/S, so essentially are PCs, so contain all the problems thin clients were initially supposed to address - so its gone full circle, but now the PCs have a server in the middle... Ultimately its all about setting and matching expectations, running a pilot and not believing everything you read/hear. I hope this doesn't sound like a rant - it's not meant to be - I just find it annoying when resellers exaggerate thin-client's abilities and cause unnecessary negative feeling towards what in the correct environment are very effective devices on many levels....

Are you looking for "server" or "client" advice (or both...)

Remotefx is a bunch different technologies - the performance "codec" has no relation to the USB redirection (in a technical sense), but in the marketing blurb they seem to to bound together USB re-direction is primarily aimed at VDI - and not (currently) supported by Microsoft on W2008 session based RDP/RDS. It is supported if you connect to a virtual machine via RemoteApp on W2008r2 USB re-direction is provided on W2012 as a function of RDS (ie session based - what you were expecting), with or without using RemoteFX - ie the two functions are entirely separate. (Things may have changed - but when I last investigated this - that was the case...) You probably are better off using the specific mass storage re-direction over the generic USB re-direction - there will be extra latency in using the generic re-direction - and memory sticks were initially designed to be pretty much "real-time" and can be sensitive to latency, esp over a WAN...

You're quite possibly being "oversold" product by who ever is guiding you here (you mention cost being a factor) - you can do all the above with generic Microsoft, connecting to virtual machines via RemoteApp, and home-users logging in securely via Microsoft's Gateway protocol (which uses SSL, and if you need additional security you can add in client and server certificates) In that scenario any device with a browser should be able to connect remotely and securely over the internet.

I had a play with a multi-touch screen on a thin client - and at the moment I remain to be convinced, it's certainly not as smooth or intuitive as "Apple", and a large screen is not as easy to manipulate as a phone/tablet, but it does work - and with the right applications might be impressive.... It seems a little immature at the moment - all the involved parties don't seem to be gelling together - for example on W2012, to get into the "charm box/area" you have to pull the cursor beyond the edge of lower left corner - not easy on a touch-screen with your finger ! You can press "Window key + C" - but shouldn't touch screens be more intuitive - not less so.... Anyway I suppose all current generation of thin-clients support multi-touch, so whether to use or not is not a decision anyone needs to stick their neck out over... I won't be throwing my mouse away in a hurry !

Hi Spicer, and welcome the forums, Since no one has responded I'll offer my halfpenny's worth. RDP is much more efficient than VNC, (due to Microsoft's millions) - but VNC should work fine over a LAN, tho would probably struggle on a WAN. The video below shows a device, which I think is unique in having an on-board VNC-client - for connecting to Linux type GUI envionments. (in fact anything with a VNC server in it, it also has embedded VNC server for remote control) The video shows a connection to W2012, with NLA and all that good stuff, but you will be able to see the VNC setting and should be able to imagine how that would fit together. On a "standard" Linux multi-user system you would run multiple instances of the VNC server on the Linux server - each one on a unique port, and each client would connect to its own port, but for your ESX setup it sounds like each VM has its own IP address - so VNC can be left to run on its default port. (Or put another way - the client just needs to see an IP address and port to connect to...) There have been various attempts over the years to port RDP (server) on Linux, ie RDP over "X" - but I don't know how active these projects are, for example: xrdp

Though I'd just highlight this school's video... ...and let you all know there is a (free) f/w upgrade for Axel M80 terminals to for support for W2012. (Microsoft beefed up the security - so all thin clients will have to be upgraded to reflect these changes) (On his Blog is also described using a Raspberry PI as a thin-client - which is interesting ! wpsit.blogspot.co.uk )

Hi Will - Yes, the M85 (as per video) is essentially a point of sale version of the office type M80 terminal you have - it just has extra ports (serial + parallel) for POS peripherals. The same f/w runs on both and f/w shown is currently in Beta...

Remote Desktop Services is definitely included in W2012 - I recently made a training video for setting up wifi terminals - and connected to Windows2012 server. Configuring wifi Thin Client - YouTube (When buying terminals with intention to use them with W2012 at some point - its probably a good idea to check they support NLA or can be upraded to do so)

There's a picture of what can be achieved on link below with TCs. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/thin-client-virtual-machines/45960-tidy-thin-client-installation.html Desks were supplied by a company called "ABC Desks" You can get various software solutions that will give the teacher the ability to see all the student's screens on the teachers monitor at the same time, so teacher doesn't have to be in line of sight of each student's monitor. The teacher can also take conrol of any student's machine. (Google Netsupport, I think it works on PCs and TCs) Windows Multipoint Server has this feature embeded as standard, and supports up to 20 users - it sounds like that should be enough.

.... you could also consider using Citrix or Microsoft's terminal services (RDS) - this would still give users access to their desktop from home and be a lot cheaper/easier to setup.

Are they....? They only just released it a few months back. Googling doesn't bring up anything obvious to say they are EOL'd ...though it does seem Microsoft have difficulty in getting much "traction" with Multipoint so there could be a knock-on effect of Multipoint dedicated hardware... Did you hear this through official channels ?

AndiMarv To give you something "tangible" to test on the client side was can send you a free "ethernet" connected thin client. It would be an ex-demo device, supplied with no warranty, but yours to keep (no strings attached). With direct RDP connected devices you can connect the full compliment of 20 clients to one server (with the console that gives you your full 21 ?), and performance won't be severely impacted, as RDP puts much less load on the server CPU - but the performance won't be as high as a lower number of USB connected devices. It all depends on your performance expectations/requirements - This is what you can expect on the client end - not too bad for more "casual" users Multi-Media on RDP Thin client - YouTube PM me if you wish to accept the offer...

Can we send you a zero client for comparison. This will run flash well with no extra software, our approach is to optimise the hardware to get the performance. Flash redirection is all very well (should be?), but obviously only works for flash, so not for Mediaplayer, HTML5 or any other format, current or future. Having more optimised hardware will provide increased in performance in all graphics environments - without adding more load to the server (The M80 will also cost less, and has 5 year warranty, shipped with (free) remote management s/w, lower power consumption, includes VESA mounting bracket...) This is what you would expect to see: Multi-Media on RDP Thin client - YouTube Here's what other schools think of Axel...: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/thin-client-virtual-machines/22082-axel-ax3000-m70-lesson-monitor.html PM me if interested and we'll send you a no hassle eval terminal to run alongside any others you are testing, you have nothing to lose...! Matthew

....without AV isn't there a risk of propagating the virus all around the organisation, fair point the VM's can be recreated clean - but in theory you would have to delete all VM's at the same time to eradicate the virus... ...and as viruses are a definite reality, this scenario is inevitable....?

...Did you resolve the volume question ?