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Microsoft to release stripped down thin client OS version of Windows

Written on Apr 18 2005
Filed under:
18,790 views, 33 comments

by Brian Madden

After months of rumors it looks like Microsoft will in fact release a Windows XP-based operating system that will essentially convert an old PC into a Windows manageable thin client device.

Steven Bink is reporting that there will be two products, currently codenamed Eiger and Mönch. (Eiger is the base version and Mönch will add security, wireless, and other additional features.) These will essentially be stripped-down versions of Windows XP that let people "convert" PCs into thin client devices while still getting the manageability of Windows. (SMS, WUS, etc.)

No word yet on pricing although it will certainly be less than Windows XP. The real question is whether a person should buy an Eiger-based super cheap PC or a Windows XP Embedded-based thin client device. My guess is that an Eiger PC would probably be cheaper than an XPe thin client, and the Eiger PC would probably be easier to update an manage.

Note that these two new products will not replace the "Lite" version of Windows that's being sold in some countries. Eiger and Mönch are NOT "Lite" products. Instead they are versions of Windows specifically designed for Enterprise and Academic customers who want to convert PCs into thin clients.

Check out Bink's site for the full feature list of each product.





Comments

Guest wrote Release Date?
on Mon, Apr 18 2005 2:28 PM Link To This Comment
Is there a release date yet? This would be good for our environment. We had been looking at writing a version using XP embedded but this would be a lot easier.

Thank you, JP
Josh Holst wrote Version
on Mon, Apr 18 2005 4:38 PM Link To This Comment
Is this the same thing that Microsoft is releasing over in India and other small Countries?
Guest wrote Could be big.
on Mon, Apr 18 2005 9:57 PM Link To This Comment
Think about it, lots of places with older PCs could extend their life. Some of the more 'progressive' users have already made linux thin clients out of these PCs, but still being able to make these into thin clients without changing any skills of the current staff, or introducting another os type to support could be a big cost saver in some environments.

Ron
Guest wrote Re: Could be big.
on Mon, Apr 18 2005 10:41 PM Link To This Comment
I can see your point, but most stripped-down Linux based thin clients (PXES, ThinStation et al) can be configured to go straight to the terminal session login screen. Indeed, this is actually how I normally configure it; user powers on, downloads the boot image (bootp etc), the Linux kernel boot and X starts, first (and only) app to launch does so at full screen and displays a Windows Terminal Server login screen. If not for the kernel messages during boot (which can be removed if I want) the user wouldn't know they had Linux under the hood :)
Guest wrote Re: Version
on Mon, Apr 18 2005 11:03 PM Link To This Comment
did you even read the article?

"Note that these two new products will not replace the "Lite" version of Windows that's being sold in some countries."
Guest wrote License Cost
on Mon, Apr 18 2005 11:39 PM Link To This Comment
Don't forget, for schools and nonprofits with next-to-no budget for IT, hardware cost is only part of the issue. License cost for MS products is also a problem
Guest wrote Re: Release Date?
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 4:58 AM Link To This Comment
have u looked at http:t you might be interested in is http:

all three (3) mentioned above support pxe and rdesktop which supports microsoft's rdp protocol for terminal servers.
Guest wrote HP's Thin Client
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 5:54 AM Link To This Comment
I thought HP has released its ThinClient with Windows XP SP2 based operating system ...
Guest wrote Great news for SBC
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 6:30 AM Link To This Comment
This will bring even more attention to SBC in general, which MS seems to be focusing more and more on in their upcoming releases.
Guest wrote MS Copy again
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 6:33 AM Link To This Comment
Againt they compy another idea off someone else, linux etc. All they do is take an idea (not their own) copy it (so bad it has a tun of holes) , stick it in a flashy box and advertise the hell out of the "features" they suposibly came up with.
Guest wrote Re: Re: Release Date?
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 9:22 AM Link To This Comment
yes, we have looked into those, but one issue we have is how do we update the citrix ica client? We usually need the latest functionality and as many are based on Linux, we do not have the time to figure out how to get things working. Additionally, most of our internal websites are built for IE, and we do not want to publish IE on our farm, so we need a browser on the client, preferably IE. We have also had hardware compatiability issues with these clients. Just a lot of issues that made them unpractical for our environment, but I could see there use in other environments.
Thank you, JP
Guest wrote Management of thin clients (was Re: Re: Re: Release Date?
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 10:56 AM Link To This Comment
The more software on the central server (or server farm) the less management is needed on the thin client. If you do need to manage it, then there are systems such as netboot. Many network cards can be programmed to boot the system off the LAN, so no local software install at all. Update your central boot image and the clients get updated automatically. Isn't this what the "PXE" mechanism is about?

I've always considered UNIX the better multi-user system as it has good shared memory support which is lacking in Windows. Multiple users using the same software, or even different software using the same libraries (DLLs if you like) only require one copy of that code in the server's memory. I'm not aware of this on Windows.
Guest wrote The XP Terminator
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 10:56 AM Link To This Comment
My guess is this is simply Terminal Services with XP's UI.
Guest wrote Re: Re: Could be big.
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 11:10 AM Link To This Comment
yeah the skills I was talking about are from an IT perspective not the client perspective. Most large orgs wont implement a new OS if they only have passing knowledge of it.

Ron
Guest wrote Mixed bag...
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 12:45 PM Link To This Comment
Most fascinating.

Certainly, a good way to keep used hardware in use, but still requires

1. Payment for the thin client OS
2. Terminal Services CALs
3. Windows User CALs
4. High-end server hardware

Won't help those who don't have the money for all that.
David Sanchez wrote Sorry Brian
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 3:44 PM Link To This Comment
Sorry for the (possible) "slashdotted" of this page :-(

If you don't know yet:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/19/0111218

Sorry again
Guest wrote Re: Management of thin clients (was Re: Re: Re: Release Date?
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 6:49 PM Link To This Comment
The Windows NT memory manager does actually use the same RAM to back multiple instances of a single binary (.exe or .dll) mapped in different processes. It's been this way since NT was released in 1993, so it's rather puzzling that you'd think such a basic feature would be missing from a major commercial OS.
Guest wrote Multiframe is an excellent converter
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 7:25 PM Link To This Comment
A norwegian product, it converts thick clients to thin terminals and prolongs the life of the workstation considerably. It can also be installed in thin clients and administer them. No more Anti Virus or patching of the workstation. Extremely high security since the Linux distribution takes control over every component in the workstation.

It is a Linux/Unix distribution developed by Linpro/Umoe IKT in Norway and has gained credit back home. It's largest implementation will be about 9000 clients during 2006.

It's price? Unbeatable! 150 NOK per client, per year! Or, approximately 20 USD per client per year...


Wanna know more??

mailto:kim.naess@gmail.com
Guest wrote Re: MS Copy again
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 8:37 PM Link To This Comment
"Thin client" is a reeeeealy old concept.

X-terminals first appeared in the late 1980s, and an argument could be made that IBM 3270 terminals were rudimentary thin clients, since they were inteligent, could do rudimentary data validation, and the user entered a whole page/screen of data at a time without disturbing the main CPU.

BTW, as an Old Fart, who <b>loved</b> my DEC VXT2000 x terminal, and still loves working on host-based systems, I laugh at the pendulum swing back towards central control, away from Fat Clients.
Brian Madden wrote Re: Sorry Brian
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 9:51 PM Link To This Comment
No worries Repking! We have a fairly robust environment and handled the traffic without any problems. Slashdotters are always welcome!!

Brian
Guest wrote Re: License Cost
on Tue, Apr 19 2005 10:59 PM Link To This Comment
Microsoft Academic pricing is very cheap (about $50. for the OS & $60. for office). The hardware to run XP can be bought off eBay for well less than $100.00. I have built many school networks with a hardware & software cost of under $200. per machine... One of which is still going with an NT server that cost about $500. total. The network has been up and running robustly for 7 years and the NT server has NEVER crashed (although it does require reboots for patches...
Rene Vester wrote Re: MS Copy again
on Wed, Apr 20 2005 4:26 AM Link To This Comment
Lets get over the whole, Microsoft is the bad-guy, they are doing business the best way they can, why not offer their customers what others invented?

If you dont like Microsoft, dont buy their products, as for theft of ideas and concepts, it goes on everywhere.. Wonder where Dell got their blade-technology from?

I think this is a great idea, and offers many great things to me in my windows-based environment. I just cant wait to try this out, because i think it will save me 1000s of $ a year.

/Lamersmurf
Guest wrote Re: Mixed bag...
on Wed, Apr 20 2005 7:13 AM Link To This Comment
Multiframe is the answer for that! Linux distribution, no Anti Virus license, no need to manage the client (re install takes 3 minutes and is 30 mb large) fast and reliable and nominal price is 20 USD Approximately, for a large customers as low as 15 USD...

kim.naess@gmail.com
David Sanchez wrote Re: Re: MS Copy again
on Wed, Apr 20 2005 2:31 PM Link To This Comment
I agree on the whole thing except in the fact that there's a tendence ("tendence" doesn't mean "you" ;-) ) to use technology with a brand, just for the believe that OSI projects are not stable.

ThinStation (http://thinstation.sourceforge.net) and PXES (http://pxes.sourceforge.net) are stable, fully used, extremely manageable and customizable systems.

Please, "waste" some of your (i meant ,not you, everyone ;-) ) time looking for this products.

Maybe you find it interesting ;-) (and your pocket, too)

Saludos
Shawn Bass wrote Re: Could be big.
on Thu, Apr 21 2005 3:37 PM Link To This Comment
It could be big, but keep in mind that the biggest issue facing IT right now is management cost. That's the whole reason why SBC appealed to folks to begin with. When you deal with a SBC realm where there's still a fat Windows OS on the client you still need to deal with patch management, etc. Plus, if you allow people to perform local browsing (which I'm assuming many would) you're now dealing with local spyware/virus fighting on all your "thin clients" too!

Shawn
Shawn Bass wrote Re: Multiframe is an excellent converter
on Thu, Apr 21 2005 3:39 PM Link To This Comment
Can you pitch it a third time in this thread...please?
Guest wrote Re: Version
on Wed, May 18 2005 10:50 AM Link To This Comment
Since when was India a small country anyway?

I know it's crowded in places but the billion inhabitants might explain that.
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Guest wrote What are licenses required by thin clients
on Fri, Dec 28 2007 1:26 AM Link To This Comment

Dear friends,

I am planning to deploy thin clients in my network. i have windows 2003 server. so i already purchased neoware thin clients. now what are licenses required by client side means at thin clients side?

 

please respond to this

 

Regards,

Ashwin

Guest wrote hi
on Tue, May 27 2008 7:22 AM Link To This Comment

I am planning to deploy thin clients in my network.i have many thin client but i want to use my desktop pc as a thin clientplz response me my e-mail id is bhandari03@gmail.com                  thanku           pradeep bhandari 

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