Terminal Server client problems

[mdedionisio]

We have several clients using 2K3 server with RDP clients, some on XP, others on 2K and 98 using the MS RDP client. These customers are all running a point of sale application off of the terminal server. Several of the clients are having problems staying connected to the terminal server, which results in problems with the pos application. Sometimes the application stays on the screen, but when you try to enter data in a field it does not respond. Other times the screen turns black and you must force closure of the TS window and then reconnect.

The only thing I can say for sure is that in my office where we have a dedicated T-1 none of these problems are evident. The customers with DSL and ISDN seem to have the most issues.

I have upgraded a couple of users to XP in order to take advantage of the auto-reconnect feature, but that doesn't seem to have helped.

ANY ideas would be welcomed.

Mark

 

[ShackDaddy]

Run all your clients on the lowest resolution and color depth possible. Disable mapping com ports and sound. Disable menu animations, wallpaper.

I'd have them do some ping tests (ping servername -t) from their systems against the terminal server and record the latency for you.

If the clients happen to be trying to stream music on their SOHO systems at the same time as they are connected to the server, that will cause the sort of latency that's problematic. If the users have some sort of background network process going on that's using the DSL/ISDN, that would be the first thing to look at.

Barring those being the problem source, I'd look at the server-side network and isolate the term server traffic on a segment that not much else is happening on. Latency increases at the server's network may have a greater affect on your SOHO users than on your T-1 folks.

ShackDaddy