WHS Questions

[rbxslvr]

I'm looking into buying a copy of Windows Home Server for my old system(3.2gHz Pentium 4, 3gb DDR2), along with a new 1.5tb HDD (thank you Black Friday!). I'm really interested in some of the backup/data centralization features of it. What I really want to know though, is how the Terminal Server service works. I'd like to use the server to convert video files from a workstation. If I log on to the server as a terminal, I should be able to do this, right? And, do I have to pay extra to buy client licenses for terminal server seperate? Or is it an included feature with the client licenses.

Ohhh... also, is there a way to setup a terminal server that takes advantage of all of the processing power available on the network. I'm focusing mostly on video processing, but each PC wouldn't have to work on the same process/thread. I just want them distributed. I don't think that can be done with WHS, but is there some other way to accomplish it?

 

[AdmnPower]

Terminal services doesn't do exactly what you're talking about. What terminal services is for is for a centralized server to host RDP sessions for users on remote clients. For example say you have a small business with several clients though out the work area each a small inexpensive computer and one large central server. What those computer do when a user logs in is to establish a session with the server so essentially all of the applications that the user runs on their local machine are actually being run by the server. Pretty much one big Remote Desktop connection. The difference between Terminal Services and just standard remote desktop is that Terminal Services allows you to support many users at once where as the admin portion of RDP only allows two simultaneious connections (only one connection on xp) So to answer your question it doesn't seem like you'll need terminal services in order to do what you want to do because you'll only need one perhaps two sessions. As for the latter of your two questions, I really don't know how you'd go about doing that. It would be really cool so let us know if you figure out a way.

 

[shempf]

I'd like to use the server to convert video files from a workstation.
Ohhh... also, is there a way to setup a terminal server that takes advantage of all of the processing power available on the network.

I'd recommend reading avsforum.
This is too vague to answer for me. (convert? network processing power?)