[K12OSN] Cheap Windows Terminal Server

[luis.montes at cox.net]

Ultra low cost windows terminal server idea I’ve been kicking around:

While I'd like everyone to be free of MS only software, if it is necessary in a school to run a windows apps this might help.


Ok first off, Windows 98 isn't the most secure OS in the world, but you can run it ok on 64 megs of ram with not a whole lot of CPU. Many of us have win98 licenses lying around that are obsolete.

Vmware recently released a free VM player http://www.vmware.com/products/player/ this doesn't allow you to create the VM's but you can either buy a single copy of vmware workstation to do that($189) or try this guy's method: http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000153064739/

Now get windows 98 vm all patched up (windows update, spybot, etc.) and install ultaVnc server on it. You can then make clones of this vm through vm workstation or just copy the vm's folder, run the copy and make changes to things like computer name and IP settings.
I've got a zipped up win98 vm with 1GB disk space that only weighs in at a couple hundred megs.
The nice thing about keeping a zipped up copy is that when the win98 vm inevitably goes bad(spyware etc.) you can just delete it and unzip a new one in a few seconds.

Now I'd definitely run this on a separate box from the LTSP server, but theoretically you should be able to run at least 10 win98 sessions on a box with a gig of ram.


There are a few parts to iron out still:

I need a good screen script to run vncviewer locally on the thin client. No reason to log into ltsp just to run vncviewer.
The screen script should allow a user to choose between linux(starx) and windows(vncviewer).

Ultravnc's server seems to work ok for me on a lan, but if someone knows of a faster way to do this I'm open for suggestions.

Maybe something smart enough to kick off the vmware session if it’s not up?

This solution obviously won't support sound, but I could see some work arounds if the vmware server is running linux.

I'm no lawyer, but as far as I can tell this should all be legal.

Luis