FOR RDS ON 2012 SYSTEM, CLICK HERE
Remote Desktop Services is basically the software that will allow the terminals to connect to the server.
Sometimes it will be installed by default on new servers, but on older it may need installing through Adding roles and Features.
- Click on Server Manager > Roles > Add Roles
- Read the Informative text 🙂
- Select Remote Desktop Services
- Read the Informative text 🙂
- For a standard terminal, add Remote Desktop Session Host
- A Warning then comes up under Application Compatibility, but just click next
- Under Authentication Method, select Do not require Network Level Authentication
- Under Licensing Mode, select Per User
- Under User Groups, add the AD groups you want added to Remote Desktop Users
- Client Experience – Select all the options
- Select Install
This will now install the required services and probably need a reboot. After the reboot the server may finalise a few various settings.
RDS works differently in the various Server versions.
Click Start > All Programs > Administrative Tools > Remote Desktop Services
- Remote Desktop Services Manager: This gives you basic information about the users currently connected to the server. You can send them messages, disconnect sessions and perform a couple of other basic tasks.
- Remote Desktop Session Host Configurator: This is the important setting as you need to associate this new server with your server running the RDP licenses.Click on RD Session Host Configuration, and in the middle of the page click on Licensing Mode > specify Per User. For Remote Desktop license server, click Add then select the license server > Apply then OK. Any errors in Licensing Diagnostics should now be gone.
- Remote Desktops: This allows you to set up pre configured remote desktops. We do not use this option
- Remote App Manager: To Follow
Remember the following:
- The server would have to be added to the correct Smoothwall group so the Internet Filtering works correctly.
To add a new terminal server to this filter group, or remove one (like I am doing now for the new staff terminal), log into Smoothwall > Guardian > Policy Objects > Locations. Add the IP Address to the Server group. - After a new setup, you may get an error when trying to log on as a standard user. Something like ‘ To log onto the remote computer you must be granted the Allow log on through Terminal Services right.To fix this error, right click My Computer > Properties > Remote Settings > Select User > Add whatever groups you need.
We will at some stage migrate away from Server 2008 to 2012 or later. The following article may be useful for Cal transference to the new server: