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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?"
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?
None ever saw widespread popularity.
This had nothing to do with the fact that they were thin clients. It had everything to do with the fact that they weren't Windows. Just like every other OS that has failed to attain any real market share.
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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
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.
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