which terminal server to use

OK. I'm the Technology Coordinator for a rural school district that doesn't have a lot of money allocated for technology.

What I'm researching is how to get all PCs access to MS Office software.

I'm considering using MS Terminal Server.

I have about 500 workstations that vary from P-166 up to P-IV-1.8Gz.

Which Terminal Server should I use? 2000 or 2003? Cost is a big factor in my decision.

Let me know if there's any more information that I need to provide.

 

I really like windows 2003, but it's also the new kid on the block, and wouldn't really trust it in my Enterprise for production servers just yet. If stability is your plan, go with Windows 2000 with SP4.
You will need to setup a domain controller and a terminal server licensing server on that domain controller, and I would recommend a different server than your terminal server. The more clients you have connecting to your server, the bigger it should be. Maybe even load balance multiple servers together using Citrix.

 

I would definitely go with Terminal Services on 2003.

More stable and feature-rich than 2000 (and no, I'm not disparaging 2000)

The 2003 functionality is much closer to Citrix, if you're only using Window clients.

Make sure to size the box(es) appropriately.

 

Hi, av8or.

Like you, I was facing the same dillema some months ago. I have some 250 old PCs (oldest are AMD-K6-350 with 64MB RAM) and I was tired of running around and updating software and OS. The best solution seemed to be TS, but which one? 2000? 2003? 2003 even wasn't in final version then...
You see, I am working with W2K TS some years now for managing my servers from remote, and I know its abilities... They are good for administrators, but lack some important things when talking about applications: large bandwith (100MBps Ethernet will not be enough for so many stations), only 256 colours, unsecure RDP protocol, and its media capabilities are bad. All these made me decide toward Windows2003. Its TS are much better in all the aspects Windows2000 was bad...
I did a pilot, and was very pleasant surprised to see the results: we opened a PDF file from our web server and it opened in half the time it took to open on the same station, localy, without the TS.

 

Sorry for the second part, couldn't send so much text in one piece...

I am now implementing the project, starting with two Intel servers, dual processor, with 2GB RAM; I am using Windows2003 Enetrprise Edition, that has high quality tools for Fault Tolerance and Load Balancing between the servers, and something called Session Directory: if your connection drops for some reason, when you connect again, you are redirected back to the same server, to the same session, and pick up your session from the same spot.
Anyway, this is my experience with the two systems.
You have to take in consideration all the other aspects: the licensing, both for OS and TS, the servers' cost (depending on the application you will use, you can connect between 20 and 50 stations to the same server), the project implementation (do you need outside technical support?) and so on...
I hope you will find this informantion usefull.