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?"

Comments

Small buisness

[maotx]

As a sysadmin for a small buisness (~100 employees and growing fast) I've been trying to push thin-clients for a while now. My manager and the other sysadmin is very reluctant to pursue this solution but I cannot find any reason why a recpetionist, data entry, or accounting needs a new, full featured desktop. Thin-clients are rising in popularity again and it won't be long for them to become a familar site in small to large buisnesses. The only reason I can find to purchase Microsoft's XP thin-client is for those of us who would use it with terminal services. Terminal server requires a license for each connecting client, which a Windows OS has. One of the arguments I've heard against thin clients is the licensing fees for terminal service. Why purchase a $200 thin client and then a CAL license[1]when you can purchase a $400 full fledge desktop with XP? If my manager wasn't so strong against Office alternatives[2] a Linux server with OO.org would save the company a fortune. We wouldn't have to worry about costly maintenance[3] or extradanory licensing fees with an OSS thin-client.

[1] can't recall how much a CAL costs
[2] we're a government contractor and worried about compatibility
[3] defrag, spyware, updates, corruption, etc

Re:Small buisness

[JoeShmoe]

Starting with Windows 2003, Microsoft now licenses Terminal Services separately. You get 0 license credit for having XP, even XP Pro. Previously, under Windows 2000 Terminal Services any 2000 Pro client gets granted a license from a free unlimited pool.

Also, starting with Windows 2003, you have to decide between per-user or per-device pricing and you can't switch later. This means either having five computers with as many people logging in and out as can share them or having five users who can connect from any particular machine. Of course, this is all separate from the required client access license for Windows 2003 itself.

A Terminal Service license will run the average business about $84; that's the cost under Microsoft's Open License program. Huge companies under the Select program will no doubt save some money, and I think you can save more by signing up for software assurance.

So the bottom line is that since you are already paying for a license, why do you want to pay extra for a full XP license that is doing nothing more than passing keyboard and mouse signals to the server? It makes no sense. Odds are thay any computer you have came with a license for SOME kind of Windows, and since they can all run the client, that seems the obvious choice.

Regarding remote management, I haven't found anything in XP that isn't cheaper and better from third-party products. The only thing I would actually want Microsoft to do is freakin make an XP product that can run from a USB key or a bootable CD. That would be a valid competitor to the various thin-client projects.

So, I don't plan on getting any of these new XP versions unless they are so ridiculously cheap that I would do it just to not have to remember if a particular computer is running 98, 98SE, ME or XP Home .

-JoeShmoe
.

Re:Small buisness

[Thaelon]

You neglect to mention that *using* thin clients sucks monkey nuts.

They redraw painfully slowly, they render simple bitmaps painfully slowly, where I work Firefox currently does not work on the thinclients (though it used to?). Certain applications (UltraEdit most notably) are a nightmare to scroll around in on a thinlclient. In certain cases turning on track changes in Word causes the thing to grind to a halt. Characters appear 1-2 seconds after you hit the key, Gmail's Login page brings the thing to its knees.

They have mine so locked down I can't adjust my own god damn mouse sensitivity, the admin has to log into the thinclient himself and adjust it.

Not to mention if one person uses all the terminal server's CPU everyone else's thinclient freezes up.

I would kill for a real PC at work and I've got the newest model on site. I hate running on a machine that can't keep up with me.

Sounds to me like you did your thesis purely from the admin standpoint and forgot about the poor suckers who have to use the godforsaken things.

Tell me again how they're, ergonomic?

Been There, Dont That.

[spotter]

I did that 3 years ago! Fit a linux kernel, X (vesa, so should work everywhere), dhcp and rdesktop on bootable floppy image (though the linux kernel only had one ethernet driver compiled in), basically a thin client you can take with you and would work on most computers (albiet network issues) you can find.

people can still get the image from

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~spotter/floppy.bin

though I give no warrenties for it still working, as haven't looked at it in years (and probably needs to be manually setup once it boots). though I recall it working well enough to get me an A on the project it was for.

the idea was that this floppy would give you a full screen X (via tiny X's Xvesa) and you'd run rdesktop full screen on top of it.

All about .net, right?

[ExileOnHoth]

"Is Microsoft trying to compete with open source projects like PXES or ThinStation?"

No. Microsoft never heard of PXES or ThinStation. They are absolutely desperate to deploy the .net framework more widely, so people will actually start to develop for it. They fear people will never deliberately download and try to install it on their older boxes without something like this.

Be interesting to see how this works out for them. I won't lose sleep over it.

Re:This won't work

[El Gordo Motoneta]

I've been (for the most part) responsible for the implementation
of the second larget thin-client rollout in my country. In fact,
I'm still in that position, since we still have two whole buildings
left to migrate.

The average box in this company is a Pentium II, 333Mhz, with 64MB of RAM
with Trident PCI VGA.

They are way too slow to run a modern desktop (before we started the
thin client rollout, they were mostly running their original Windows 95
installation), but they are fast enough to run Xfree 4.3 with accelerated
2D Trident drivers. They run *beautifully*. The large amount or RAM
let's us add small webservers and telnet servers to the thin client disk
images, and a Samba nmbd process so they have a NetBIOS name. We are using
Terminal services on a Windows 2003 Server to provide a modern and relatively
secure OS.

So far, the absolutely biggest complaint we have ever had is that Office
2003 does not include the "Office shortcut bar" (boo-f*ng-hoo) so we ended
up installing the damn bar from an Office XP CD we had lying around.

The users are happy with their "new computers". They crash a lot less, Word
and Excel open instantly, and if power goes out or the machine breaks, their
whole session is intact. Help Desk is a lot easier now: When a thin client
craps out, the techies just dump it and plug another one in, turn it on,
and the user keeps on working as if nothing happened.

locked down? yes, they are. Very. But in this particular company there are
nearly no "power users" and they barely even notice things the lack of a
wallpaper. They just power it up and use it to work.