A: By default, Windows Server 2003 can be enabled to support remote connections. Designed for remote administration, it’s limited to two concurrent logons.
If you want to use the server for users, then you need to enable the Terminal Server component of the OS. Also, a Terminal Server Licensing server must be available somewhere for when the server is past the 120-day grace period.
To enable the Terminal Server component, perform the following:
- Start Add/Remove Programs control panel applet.
- Select Add/Remove Windows Components.
- Enable Terminal Server component. If there’s no Terminal Server Licensing instance in the environment, you might also want to enable the Licensing component.
- Click OK to all dialog boxes.
You can now perform configuration and select licensing options such as per-user or per-device based on the licenses you’ve purchased.
I would stress that if you’re enabling this for the first time in your environment, look at Windows Server 2008 R2 instead of Windows 2003, if possible. Windows Server 2008 R2 contains a lot of improved capabilities and new features such as driverless printing, publishing of applications, gateway capabilities, improved RDP protocol, a web portal, better broker, and more.
To see more FAQs, please go to John Savill's FAQs page on Windows IT Pro.