Terminal Server and the end-user experience

[Professor Frink]

I'm experimenting with setting up a Terminal Server, and I'm trying to figure something out. I understand that the end-user connects via Remote Desktop, but the end result after logging on is the user sitting on the server desktop, just like they were sitting in front of the server.

I'm only doing this to run Office 2000 (for one old custom app). Is there any way to change the behavior of Remote Desktop and the end-user experience? Some sort of sandbox environment?

FYI -- this is Server 2003, SP2 and XP Pro, SP3

Edited September 8, 2008 by Professor Frink

[cluberti]

Go to Admin Tools > Terminal Services Configuration, go to the properties of the RDP-Tcp connection, and click the "Environment" tab. Select the option "Start the following program when the user logs on:", and enter the full path to the executable to run, and the start-in path. Note that the standard explorer.exe will not run, so certain things that are shell-dependant will not work, but in general this should be all you need. If you need group policy processing to occur (this is actually launched when the shell is invoked, so you may need to do this), you need to make sure the user runs a logon script for the TS that calls "runonce.exe /alternateshellstartup" - this will launch explorer.exe just long enough to do certificate and group policy processing, and then explorer.exe will exit when finished (and the user will not see any desktop).

[Professor Frink]

Wow, that worked perfectly. I can't believe I didn't notice that setting before.

Thanks!