Using Thin Clients at Home

Using Thin Clients at Home - Why?

Ebay is awash with thin clients that offer a very quiet energy efficient way of running a workstation at home without the outlay of a second PC, and all of the software that goes on it! Potentially a saving of £500?? $800?

1. Most families in the UK have 2 kids right, well they can effectively share one PC without it feeling like it.
2. If you work from home then perhaps you don't want to hog the PC the whole time, and would like a second workstation for your wife to work / surf at.
3. If you have loads of photos and music setting up a thin client means two people can access the same stuff at the same time, this includes software like MS word and Excel.

Using Thin Clients at Home - Basic Principal.

If you have a copy of windows server then this is increased to two admin logins via thin clients, and one person working on the server, so three way share of 1 PC. If your kids are at school you cabn get a free coipy of windows server via Dreamspark.

If you are a linux fan then you may which to check out Userful MultiSeat Linux 2011™

Warning: You will need a little bit a patience.

Using Thin Clients at Home - Which One.

You have to be careful to choose a thin client with a windows operating system this will probably be some form of windows CE, I am using an HP 5530 with windows CE 5.0, and it works OK proving you don't want to watch videos! T5530 Display Issues.

The main thing is that it has some form of windows on it that supports remote desktop.



Feeling stingy. If you have any old PC you could use that to log on to your new PC and share its resources and files, and make use of its greater performance. XP service pack 2 or more will do this quiet nicely for the client computer.

Using Thin Clients at Home - Setup Your PC

Setup Your PC - Users

Your PC will be the "host" and we will need to make sure we have two administrator user accounts set up on that one.

Setup Your PC - Static IP

Most thin clients will need a domain (similar to a network) to connect to, but home users use networks . . so you will have to assign a static IP to your host PC so you can log on to it from the thin client.

In order to fill in the boxes you will need to known your gateway IP (yours routers IP) and choose an IP for your host PC say 192.168.0.155

I stumbled on the DNS server info, in the end I put my gateway IP here too and that fixed the problem.

Setup Your Thin Client

Most windows clients will be running windows CE or similar, the bit we are interested in is remote desktop connection.

To get going type in the IP adress you assigned to your host PC and connect you will need the log in details for the 2nd user you set up for the host PC.

With a bit of luck everything should connect and you will be working on your host PC before you know it.

By clicking the options button before logging on the the remote desktop, there are loads of options to tweak.

Under the "General" Tab save your details for next time, which will create a file on your client desktop, with all of your preferred remote connection settings.

"Display" Tab - Uncheck display connection bar (you can disconnect) using the shut down button.

"Local resources" - normally good as it is.

"experience" - if you are LAN the max this out, (check all boxes)

"advanced" - server authentication - turn off warnings

All Good - Great
Not Working - Leave a comment and I will endevour to fix the problem.


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