E x a m p l e s

Example 1

• PC with Microsoft Windows XP Professional (WXP-Pro-PC).
• 2 a 3 GHz pentium, 512 MB or 1 GB internal memory, 1 or 2 harddisks.
• XP Unlimited installed.

Applications installed on the WXP-Pro-PC

• Microsoft Office 97, 2000, 2003, XP (whatever version you have or like to use), or Open Office.
• Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or any other email program.
• Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer.
• Business software that does not want to run on anything less then Windows XP.
• Powerhungry virus scanner. Theseadays one still needs a virus scanner for Windows. However, one also needs a fast PC for those virus scanners, because sometimes they consume a lot of cpu- and memory while scanning.

Extra hardware connected to the WXP-Pro-PC

• You have a scanner that does not have any driver voor Windows 9x, Mac of Linux, only for Windows XP.
• Connect a centrale printer to the WXP-Pro-PC, for instance a color laserjet. Again no drivers for Windows 9x, Mac of Linux.
• Extra harddisk for all the company files. Maybe a raid-configuration.

Remote desktops

• 10 to 50 cheap PC's with 500 MHz cpu (more or less) with Windows 9x or Linux (running rdesktop in combination with KDE, Gnome or IceWM).

These PC's cannot not be used for the applications that are running on the WXP-Pro-PC, nor can they handle the scanner, printer and virus scanner.
Using a simple switch or hub these cheap PC's and the WXP-Pro-PC are all connected to the same network. You could configure WXP to act as a DHCP-server for those cheap PC's.

Solution

Because of the XP Unlimited software, all those cheap PC's can have a remote desktop connection with the WXP-Pro-PC. The applications do not run on the slow cpu but run on the WXP-Pro-PC. Only the remote desktop is displayed on the cheap PC.
One extra remark: because you do not install any applications on the cheap PC, they will run more then fast enough for a remote desktop session. You could run a browser of an email-program on the cheap PC's. Don't do that. Run all internet related programs like browsers and email programs on the WXP-Pro-PC and give your users a remote desktop session. If you allow your users to run a browser or email-program on their own cheap PC, you must also provide them with a virus scanner and firewall. Although the firewall might not degrade the performance very much, your cheap PC won't run smooth with a modern virus scanner. Next to this, you will have to buy 11 to 51 virus scanners (1 for the WXP-Pro-PC and 10 to 50 for the cheap remote desktop PC's), instead of only one running on the WXP-Pro-PC.

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