How to Install Terminal Services Step by Step

Overview

The first step to installing Terminal Services is to open the control panel and double-click "Add/Remove Programs."  Along the left side of the Add/Remove Programs window that opens, click the bottom icon -- "Add/Remove Windows Components."

The Windows Components Wizard will then appear.  Scroll down and find Terminal Services, and place a check in the box to the left of it.  If you click the "Details" button, you will see there are two sub-components, "Client Creator Files" and "Enable Terminal Services."  The first one enables you to create floppies to use to install Terminal Services on client computers, and the second is pretty self-explanatory.  Click Next to continue.

The next screen prompts to install Terminal Services to run in one of two modes: "Remote Administration," or "Application Server."  Administration mode permits two Terminal Server client connections to the server.  This mode does not require licensing, but allows only members of the Administrators group to access the server.  This is an excellent choice for non-Terminal Server servers, to enable remote control-type access to remote servers.

Application mode permits more than two simultaneous connections by non-administrators, but requires the Terminal Services Licensing service to be installed on a domain controller (any server will do in a workgroup environment).  A Terminal Services Client Access License is also required for non-Windows 2000 Professional clients.  After making a selection, click Next to continue.

The next two screens have to do with "legacy" applications (any application not released in the last 15 minutes or so).  This screen is basically asking how much you would like to restrict users from accessing the registry (this is a server, after all).  Some applications store user settings in the registry, and will need more permissions to it than others.  If you know you can use it, I recommend the top choice (Windows 2000 Users), but that decision may already be made for you if a critical  application requires the bottom choice (TS 4.0 Users).

This second "legacy" screen seems pointless to me. When I installed it on my server, this screen basically showed me a list of every application that I've installed so far, along with a warning that these applications "may not work properly." This is kind of like the "service engine soon" light on my car. It could indicate nearly anything. There are several reasons why applications may not work properly with Terminal Services. Applications that lock files or dlls may not run so nice, since there is the possibility that more than one use will try to use the application at the same time. Applications that use computer name or IP address for identification may have trouble if more than one user at a time runs it. So far, all of the applications listed when I installed it have worked just fine. Perhaps this screen was required by the Microsoft legal staff. I don't know why, though -- has installing a Microsoft product ever caused problems for third-party software in the past?

Next comes the obligatory file copying progress screen. This goes pretty fast: there aren't that many files. One of the directories created is WINNT\system32\clients\tsclient. On my server, I shared this directory as read-only. This way, I can install the Terminal Server client over the network without using floppies. Simply run setup.exe from the net/win32 directory (or win16, as appropriate).

That's it! Just click the Finish button and then...oh shoot.