Question on GPO w/ Term Svcs

[Mark Levy]

Hi All,

I wasn't sure if I should be posting this question in one of the Win2K
terminal services group, but since this is a GPO question, and the two other
groups are for clients and apps, this seemed like a better place. If I'm
wrong, I apologize.

I've got a client with a mixed Win2K-Win2003 AD domain. They've got 60
Windows 2000 terminal services servers, with over 1500 TS clients. They
would like to manage the TS users using GPOs, including managing Windows
environment variables, but again, all of the Terminal Services servers are
Win2000, and all the TS clients are Win2K Professional, and when trying to
edit the policy, they're informed that they need to be using Windows XP
clients.

Is there anything that can be done, say with a different snap in, or using
extensible policies, in order to allow them to manage those Win2KPro
terminal services clients? The problem is that they're simply not at a
point where they can afford to upgrade the servers and clients (both in time
and $$) to Win2003 TS and WinXP clients. Is this problem because they're in
a mixed Win2k/Win2003 AD network?

Thanks in advance.

Mark

 

[Herb Martin]

Hi All,

I wasn't sure if I should be posting this question in one of the Win2K
terminal services group, but since this is a GPO question, and the two
other groups are for clients and apps, this seemed like a better place.
If I'm wrong, I apologize.

When in doubt about such, it is actually perfectly appropriate
to (sensible) cross-post a SINGLE message to the groups likely
to help.

Then you get two or three "groups of experts" who are able to
see and respond to each others ideas of how to help you.

I've got a client with a mixed Win2K-Win2003 AD domain. They've got 60
Windows 2000 terminal services servers, with over 1500 TS clients. They
would like to manage the TS users using GPOs, including managing Windows
environment variables, but again, all of the Terminal Services servers are
Win2000, and all the TS clients are Win2K Professional, and when trying to
edit the policy, they're informed that they need to be using Windows XP
clients.

If you use GPO fields that are only supported on XP this will
of course be a problem.

If you use GPOs on Win2003 that are new then you have to run the editor
from the XP OR Win2003 Server machines however.

Run the GPO editor from a Win2003 DC. If the fields are supported
you should be able to edit them. (Or edit from XP with 2003 tools loaded.)

Is there anything that can be done, say with a different snap in, or using
extensible policies, in order to allow them to manage those Win2KPro
terminal services clients? The problem is that they're simply not at a
point where they can afford to upgrade the servers and clients (both in
time and $$) to Win2003 TS and WinXP clients. Is this problem because
they're in a mixed Win2k/Win2003 AD network?