Windows Server 2008: The Definitive Guide

Terminal Services Administration

You can administer a Terminal Services machine from three points:

The Terminal Services Manager console within Server Manager

You can run this console to display and control Terminal Services connections on a network.

The Terminal Services Configuration console within Server Manager

This console adjusts the individual Terminal Services configurations on each TS host.

The Terminal Services Licensing console

This console manages licensing across all Terminal Services machines in a domain.

At press time, TS licensing policies were still being developed and thus I will not be covering licensing. Instead, in this section, I'll cover the basic administrative functions that the Terminal Services Manager applet can perform, and then I will focus on some common tasks using the Terminal Services Configuration applet.

Terminal Services Manager

Terminal Services Manager (TSM) is the focal point where all connections between client computers and Terminal Services machines come into view. Think of it as "mission control."

Tip

TSM's full functionality only works when you run the console from a machine connected to Terminal Services through a TS session. Running TSM locally on the machine running Terminal Services will limit the functionality available to you.

Figure 10-4 shows the basic TSM layout.

Figure 10-4. The default Terminal Services Manager window

By default, TSM shows ...