I knew there was a way to do this. It just took forever to find out how. Of course I ran across the "For Sale" methods first. However, with the Internet being what it is, I knew that eventually I would discover a howto. So here it is. How to setup a PC to boot directly into an RDP session without the use of a locally attached boot media.
I administer a network for an organization. As part of that network, there are about ten computers that are used as timeclocks. These timeclocks where running an application on Windows 2000. Because these computers where essentially logged on all the time, employees where using more than just the timeclock. It was found that these computers where being used to play games, surf the Internet, and check personal email. And, because these are personal computers, if one where to fail, it might take several hours to replace it because the OS and applications would need to be installed on a different computer.
A Terminal Server had already been installed for remote access. It was running Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services in Application Mode. The plan was to purchase dumb terminals and configure them to run through the Terminal Server. At a cost of $200 - $300 each, this is a fairly inexpensive solution. The dumb terminals could be forced into a specific application, thereby preventing access to the Internet and personal email as well as preventing anyone from installing additional software.
Still, this was not the best solution. When the company is in a budget crunch, a sudden $2000 - $3000 expenditure is not looked on favorably. Also, at least one extra unit would need to be purchased in case one where to fail. This is because it is a proprietary setup and there is not any existing hardware.
After some searching, I finally ran across a solution that just seemed to fit my needs. There is a free product available called ThinStation.
So what is ThinStation? What does it do? How does it work?
ThinStation is a Linux based OS. It's very small and only does one thing. It makes a PC capable of connecting to a remote host using several common interfaces. Those interfaces are Windows Terminal Services (RDP), Citrix ICA, x-Terminal (XDM), TightVNC, SSH, Telnet, and Tarantella. To put it simply, it turns a PC into a dumb terminal.
It does not matter how the machine is configured to boot. Because the OS is so small, almost any boot media could be used. The OS could be placed on the Network, local hard drive, local CD-ROM, local USB Drive, etc.
For my purposed, I choose to boot from the Network. Part of this decision was based on the fact that I already had the RIS service installed on one of my Windows Servers. I poked around on the ThinStation site for a while before I found the "HowTo" on booting to ThinStation using Microsoft Remote Installation Services After a little trial and error, I had successfully booted a PC into a RDP session without the use of the local hard drive. Then it was just a matter of specifying the application to be run in Active Directory.
I reconfigured all the timeclocks to boot using the ThinStation method. As part of this reconfiguration, I pulled the hard drive, CD, and floppy cables to prevent potential access to that media. The end result was a dumb terminal that would run the TimeClock application and nothing else. Because the hardware requirements are so low, if one of my timeclocks fail, any old PC built within the last ten years can be configured to take it's place in about 15 minutes. Like most computer departments, I have a number of these on the shelves that have not yet been disposed of.
One final comment on this solution was the price. All it cost was a little time to research and configure. The hardware is readily available and required no cost. The same for disaster recovery since I have replacement hardware available. Also, this solution reduced the number of Windows Licenses the company needs by 10, thereby reducing future licensing costs. This was offset somewhat by an increasing the number of Terminal Service licenses required by 10.
But don't just take my word for it. Feel free to check it out for yourself.