I'm setting up a system with Server 2003 for use in a student computer lab. I've been wondering about the remote desktop capability. I'm thinking of running application server but without knowing a lot about Remote Desktop, I'm wondering about things like how many connections it can support before it starts choking? Is there any way of restricting connections to just the lab? I don't want students trying to connect from the outside. Right now all the systems in the lab including the current server have a static IP. That probably won't change. There can be as many as 25 students in the lab at any one time if the room is full. Basically what are the limitations?

Dont worry about the amount of connections. The OS can handle alot more than 25 users. The spec of your system is more what you want to think about. If the spec of the system is high enough then you wont have any problems. Then you have the software you are going to be running, will it be tasking software?? Nobody can really give you a straight forward answer. There are a few factors to take into account. Yes you can restrict the access to the server. There is a remote access configuration manager on the server. Even if users from other areas could connect to your server, they would still need to be authenticated by your server. What I would say is...If you can, use MAC address authentication and register each of the workstations from the lab on your server. Remember not to make the server a domin controller or remote connections will be limited to administrators. :-)

>Remember not to make the server a domin >controller or remote connections will be >limited to administrators. It's not true. You can allow to login for any user/group you want to but remember to add write permission for that group in terminal services configuration\RDP-Tcp prpoperties\Permission (r the group will not be able to log int through remote desktop connecion) and add that group it to domain controler policy security for log in.