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Terminal Server Support

From version 5, thin client support is available via Microsoft’s Terminal Services.

Terminal Services is a component of Microsoft Windows operating systems (both client and server versions) that allows a user to access applications or data stored on a remote computer over a network connection without the need to install the application locally.

The way the system works under a terminal server is that an instance of the ABClient program is launched in each session.

Installation

Run the abtcsetup.msi set-up program on the terminal server and follow the simple on-screen instructions for installing the ‘client’ program only. Apart from making sure the ABClient program is not blocked by the Windows or third party firewalls, no further setup is required.

Connection to Terminal Service Clients

To get a list of all the currently active terminal server sessions (or clients), you must first connect to the terminal server its self. Once a connection to the server has been established, a list of terminal server sessions are automatically displayed within the Tutor control programs connection list.

Terminal Server clients appear in the list with a different icon.  

TS client computers are added to the Tutor list and are controlled in the same way as normal connections to a computer.

Configuring AB Tutor to Auto Connect to Terminal Servers

Because the tutor program must connect to a terminal server in order to display all connected client sessions, you can configure the program to automatically connect to your terminal server without even showing the server in the tutor list.

Select ‘Tools’ – ‘Setting’ and click in the ‘Terminal Server’ tab

Enter the name of your terminal server and press the Add button.

Hide from Tutor and Auto Connect to above Terminal Servers

Select this option to automatically connect to all the specified terminal servers at AB Tutor start-up (irrespective of whether they are part of a classroom group). If the tutor control program is launched with Tutor access level, then these terminal server connections are not shown to the tutor, but any connected clients will be shown depending on whether the client computer name exists within the selected Classroom Group.

Auto Connect to Found Sessions

Tick this option to automatically connect to any terminal server clients that become active.

Disable Shutdown/Reboot of Server

This is an extra level of security to prevent the terminal server from inadvertently being shutdown or rebooted.

Terminal Server Connection Status

Once you have connected to a session on a terminal server, the session status is shown in brackets after the normal status text.

There are 2 main session states: Connected and Inactive.

 - Connected: This indicates that the session is active and a user is connected and using the session.

 - Inactive: This indicates that the session is active but the user is not actually connected. NOTE: in this state, you cannot view the sessions screen, if you try you will simply get a black screen. As soon as the session status changes to ‘Connected’ you will see what the remote user sees.

Caution Creating Internet Blocking policies on TS

Internet (port) blocking policies work at the level of the computer and not the user.  Therefore, if you set an Internet Access (port as opposed to website blocking) policy, you will prevent ALL traffic out of the terminal server's port.  There is a workaround.  Instead of creating a "Block Internet Access Policy", create a "Block Web Sites" policy.  In the 'Block Web Sites' dialogue box, type in the port in the form " port 80 " (not including inverted commas." This policy will work at a user, not machine, level. 

In some cases you may wish to give the person running AB Tutor Administrative rather than Tutor rights to the program.  For extra security, you can do the following to prevent any AB Tutor programs from shutting down the server.

- Create a normal ASCII text file called 'debug.ini' in the ABControl folder on the terminal server (usually this is 'C:\Program Files\ABControl')

- Using, say 'notepad.exe', edit this file and add the following 2 lines:

[settings]
block_shutdown = 1

- Save and close the file
- You will need to Stop/Start the 'AB client Manager' service for this to take effect.

 Due to a problem with some terminal server hardware configurations, we also strongly recommend applying the following setting within all AB Tutor programs.

- Launch AB Tutor (with Admin level access)
- Press and hold the Ctrl key and select the 'Tools' - 'Settings'.  This shows the 'Advanced' tab
- Select the option 'Don't block Ctrl+Alt+Del command during lockout'
- Press OK

If you have a 'shared' ABControl.xml file then that's all you need to do, if your ABControl.xml files are stored locally then you need to set this option on all AB Tutor installations.