Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server: Technical Reference (IT Professional)

The authors, all Microsoft employees involved with Terminal Server, have done a lot of performance testing of Terminal Server systems and share valuable information about how to optimize your network for top performance. Their advice is geared to administrators who haven't yet rolled out Terminal Server, as well as those who want to improve the performance of their existing installations or alter established systems to handle new applications.

Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a key element of a functional Terminal Server installation, and the authors dissect it thoroughly--in prose and graphics--from both the client side and the server side. Readers get a grasp of which components talk to which others, when, and why. Having related the technical fundamentals of how Terminal Server systems work, the authors then get into testing (outlining Microsoft's own testing protocols in the process). Appendices fill more than a third of this book with error code explanations, details on Performance Monitor objects, a list of utility programs, and complete documentation of the Terminal Server Application Program Interface (API). There's a 120-day evaluation version of Terminal Server on the companion CD-ROM too. --David Wall

Topics covered: Windows NT Terminal Server design architecture and its relationships to other Windows NT variants, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), system planning, deployment, testing, optimization, and troubleshooting.