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Microsoft to Release a Thin-Client Windows XP
repking writes "I'm reading on Brian Madden's Thin Client Web that Microsoft is about to release (don't know exactly when) two new versions of Windows XP targeting the thin-client market (This products ARE NOT the Lite XP versions that Microsoft is about to release on certain countries like Brazil). Codenamed Eiger and Mönch, these two new releases would let you 'convert' old PC into thin-client Devices. Is Microsoft trying to compete with open source projects like PXES or ThinStation?"
Maybe this is part of their .net vision to have web-enabled windows? Trying to compete with GooOS maybe?
How many times must hitory repeat itself?
1 - Diskless Workstations
2 - X-terminals
3 - Network Computers
None ever saw widespread popularity.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Sure they don't work with sucky servers and networks, but with grunty servers, networks and reasonable software thet can work fine.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
A Windows 'Lite' (as in low resource usage, not crippled) would be perfect for many corporate environments where most users do not need or want the feature bloat present in normal versions of Windows. If this product helps companies get another couple of years out of their current workstations then I imagine this could be pretty popular.
I don't see that this would go down very well with hardware companies though. I had always thought that there was some sort of conspiracy/cartel in place whereby the big software companies constantly bloated their products in order to drive sales of hardware. This could shake things up a bit...
Does this mean XP going to have small bugs instead of big ones?
Sweet, lots of companies including the one I work for already run Citrix to allow scarce and expensive software packages to be accessed without having to commit a full installation to every single possible client.
For example, I typically run Citrix to access the the SQL Navigator software, and also certain corporate applications that would necessitate me having a whole lot of configuration to do if I couldn't go through Citrix.
Response times over a typical corporate pipe are pretty decent, and it certainly beats not having an app you need.
One worry for MS though, if this catches on, might the ease of administration, standardised licensing etc, start to hurt full Windows sales ?
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
While not as nice as real thin clients, old junk machines can easily be made to be reliable with an LTSP network.
:)
You can get a good bootable NIC for 20 bucks, remove local devices (hard drive, floppy, cdrom) and you have a pretty reliable machine.
Sure the CPU fan or the power supply can go out on your dumpster pentium 166s, but its not like you can't just take the NIC and put it in another junk machine.
I've outfitted a school with 60 workstations that my company has thrown away. Pentium 133s - P2 350s.
LTSP, specifically K12LTSP has been the perfect solution.
Save your money for network infrastructure, flat panel screens, and internet
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
At least it's one place to look and secure, as opposed to 100 with a bunch of bean counting IE users. :)
While vesa is a standard method for accessing video card functions, it dosn't have all of the features that some native card drivers do, and some operations have do be done by the CPU instead of being hardware accelerated by the graphics adapter.
I have setup a thin client system using older hardware, and while testing out options I tested using the vesa X server vs the X server for the chipset. At least to me, there was a noticeable speed difference in bit-blt operations (such as when moving a window around on the screen).
Vesa would be acceptable in most cases, but with a little extra work, I can use the lower-end machines for a little bit more then I would otherwise be able to, by using a native video card X server when it's available.
Not only do I work for a company that has done what you just said, I was the one that implemented it. (CEO's decision) Users complained for about a week. Oh I can't get to website X... if website X was deemed work accesable, it was opened up. Or I can't do blah blah. After all settled down, we found our users no longer used the web for surfing but actually started doing work. Productivity is much higher (along with taking some things away, we were also able to give new tools to users that would have been security nightmares on local machines) And my job as a sys admin/programmer has been made much simpler. Oh my machine is crashing, or my hard drive died, or well you get the idea.... All I do is replace it with a freshly formatted machine (we keep two in rotation) and install a Remote Desktop Icon on their desktop. If you were doing your job, you wouldn't care about the invasion of privacy. The company is paying you, you are on their time. If you are doing your things on their time, you are STEALING. I'm not trying to say we discourage people from using email to contact family, etc. But things like buying concert tickets, etc can be done on one's own time. Also, loggin emails made it easy for us to spot a salesman (who has since been fired) that not only wasn't using the company email, but actually had the name of a different company in his signature. (found it in a reply from a customer that was cced to another salesman who has been using our server (as is company policy)
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. -- FDR
Cool! Now we're only gonna need 3GHz of server CPU (and a GB of RAM) per thin client connecting? Nice, I can picture out a server to handle 1000 simultaneous users. :)
One of those new dual core P4s from dell might be enough to handle 2 users. Licensing won't be a big issue, but air conditionning will be!
I am part of a team that runs a network with around 250 employees... currently about half of the organization is running on thin clients... the time spent administrating these clients is much less than the ones with regular desktops and laptops...
Yes when you say $200 thin client plus CAL would probably equal an XP machine... but... we have thin clients that are around 6 or 7 years old now from compaq that are still being used... how long do desktops or laptops last?
how long does it take you to install a new desktop for a user versus a thin client where you just drop and go? I understand you can just "ghost" a machine... but unless you're very diligent in keeping your ghost image up to date you still have to patch the darn thing...and any software that has been implemented since... as well as any special software specific to the person. Whereas when I do have to patch my servers... it's done once for the 100+ users...
I think the savings in your time alone would outweigh the cost of that XP box.
I also find helping end users with problems is so much easier... I just hop in on their session to show them what to do... almost everything can be diagnosed over the phone! (Yes you can also do that with other software like PC Anywhere, Dameware or even XP's own "Remote Assistance"... but sometimes getting that stuff to work is more pain than it's worth... whereas with this if you can get on the server you can remote control the user) I've even worked from home a few days =) (VPN and Cable modem are great together)
Granted there are still certain things that require a PC... some applications just don't play well with Terminal Server... we've had some major problems with some of the older Access 97 applications that people have developed and which are no longer supported by Microsoft. Palm pilot users can't sync (that I know of) on a terminal server... and you can't share out printers from thin clients... like our label printers which are difficult to network. And then there are those people who are travellers and require their laptops and data with them... so thin client isn't for everyone... but I'm sure it's good enough for most...
For the people who we've switched to thin clients... people seem to like it... it "boots up" faster... and most people really don't know the difference... everything is stored on the server so we can backup everything on our tapes... which you can't really do with 100+ desktops...
The single point of failure is a relevant argument for some... but if you create a cluster of terminal servers for redundancy you reduce that possibility of one server crash breaking all your eggs =) If you have all your eggs in one basket you can watch them carefully... versus having hundreds of eggs in hundreds of baskets being attended infrequently.
Redundancy. Instead of having one server, have two (or three, if you feel like playing it safe). If one of them breaks down, the other one can carry on as usual while the other one is getting fixed. the users who were connected to the crashed server do need to restart their machines.
But this isn't really that much different when compared to "normal" setups. If some central server crashes, it will cause problems to the organisation. Even if they use fat clients.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Which is why most medical practice management software (I wrote some for several years) runs on extremely low-end machines. Assuming the doctor isn't gaming the books (chiropractors are especially famous for this), there is a great deal of value in having everybody on the network. Medical billing is painfully complex -- having patient information and appointments online is itself more than enough justification to put her on a low-end PC.
And hell, these days, the PC you described would probably be cheaper than that typewriter.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
first, i'm an engineer at one of the major thin client manufacturers [...] unix-ish thinger, with a vesa buffer on top, running an uber-hacked ica.
Hmm...
They shouldn't be allowed to have their own settings because it is not their fucking computer. It is our computer, we let them use it to do the JOB we pay them to do. If they want to do personal computing, they should do it at home on their own time. Thin clients are in place for people who don't need computing horsepower.
Would you give every receptionist a full blown PBX, why give every Tom Dick and Jane a full blown PC. History has shown they will just fuck it up anyway, thus costing us money to find and fix the problem.
Again, you go to work and get paid to do a job. If we lock down your PC then you will no longer be able to fuck off and will maybe actually do what we are paying them to.
If you don't like it then perhaps you should get an education so you can get a job where you are required to get a full blown PC.
Man, I fucking hate people. If one more user complains because of some error weather bug causes I am going to kick them in the face.
We're running one here, we didn't need a 100K server to run it well. Just a run of the mill tower server, not even 2K. As far as clients, we turned the existing 95 licenses we had and stacks of 200MHz doorstoppers into decent thin clients. If one of these ancient machines dies, it's 45 minutes of work, period, to get the user back up and running with no loss of data. That includes the time to load up another computer for the spares we keep on hand.
For your typical office worker, not doing CAD or Photoshop etc, you don't need a lot of processing power. We run 40 people on a cheap server and still have plenty of power left over. 10% of CPU being used with only occasional spikes to 40%.
Supporting the end users is incredibly easy now. Remote control their desktop and see exactly what they're doing wrong. Plus, they can't install anything to mess up their systems. AND, if we need to upgrade or add software, it's one install instead of 40 at various workstations in another building.
I am not in anyway affiliated with Max Cannon