I recently learned about an application called Winconnect Server XP from
www.thinsoftinc.com. There is something I don't understand about it because
it sounds too good to be true. We all know that Windows Terminal Services can
only run from a Windows Server OS which is expensive and TS licenses are
complicated. It seems to me that Winconnect solves both of these problems. It
can run on XP Pro and allows up to 21 simultaneous Remote Desktop sessions!
How can this program be legal in Microsoft's eye? That's just the legal side,
but how about the viability of the program? Does it work as advertised? PCMag
ran a favorable review of the program and so did a few mainstream online
sites. Has anyone here ever actually bought and used the program and is happy
with it?

I manage an office of 8 PCs that are in need of a major upgrade in terms of
hardware. I am thinking of going "thin" with this upgrade using Winconnect
Server XP. I have my eye on a powerful workstation acting as the host machine
while keeping most of the old computers as remote clients to run a new suite
of programs on the host PC. This office main program is Word, Excel, and
Outlook. Therefore, I am thinking a thin solution is best instead of
upgrading all these PII machines to the latest P4 ones which is an overkill.
Any comments?

There is nothing to stop a third-party programmer from creating a thin-client
server for Windows, provided it doesn't use MS-proprietary services which are
restricted as to the number of connections allowed.

VNC is such a server/client, although not suitable for your purposes as the
Windows version shares a common desktop between clients, which is probably
not what you want!

As to whether thin clients are suitable, that depends on a lot of things,
but perhaps the responsiveness of the clients is a key consideration, thin
clients are never as snappy as good fast local processor. Their main
advantage is that they allow true 'any user, any terminal' computing, even
with non-identical terminals, and productivity-software need only be
installed in one place.

I am really surprised that this product is not more well-known. I mean as far
as I know, it's one of a kind. Maybe the company does not advertise as much
as it should?

"Ian" wrote:

> There is nothing to stop a third-party programmer from creating a thin-client
> server for Windows, provided it doesn't use MS-proprietary services which are
> restricted as to the number of connections allowed.
>
> VNC is such a server/client, although not suitable for your purposes as the
> Windows version shares a common desktop between clients, which is probably
> not what you want!
>
> As to whether thin clients are suitable, that depends on a lot of things,
> but perhaps the responsiveness of the clients is a key consideration, thin
> clients are never as snappy as good fast local processor. Their main
> advantage is that they allow true 'any user, any terminal' computing, even
> with non-identical terminals, and productivity-software need only be
> installed in one place.
>
>