I am an admin responsible for about 20 computers and a server on a network at a small business. Does anyone have any ideas on how to setup an application server to run basic office programs such as a web browser, email, word processing, spreadsheets etc? I would love to be able to make everyone a terminal client and run all the programs off of the server so that updates are fast and easy. Can this be done trhough small business server 2003? I don't really have any programming skills so I would need a 3rd party solution. Also if there is an open source "free" solution I would love to hear about it.

Thanks for the help.

Sure, that's exactly what MS terminal services is for. You'll have to buy licenses for every user though.

However, Small Business Server won't run in Application Server mode. You'd need to upgrade to Windows Server Standard Edition.

Or you could just set up a computer on the network running Linux that has a free terminal server built in! I would go with Red Hat 9.

A terminal server is not the same as an application server.

Dude, bug off... You have came through here and tried to diss all my comments. Well whatever it doesn't bother me any. Yes, you can use a terminal server to execute applications. And Linux can do that. End of story...

The OP wanted to serve applications to his PCs, not run them remotely with a terminal. Big difference. Dude.

Unless you are actually suggesting that he, an admitted non-programmer, convert a small office of 20 PCs to Linux and spend the rest of his career holding their hands.

Besides, I'm not "trying to diss" your comments. I am correcting your errors and misstatements and stating my opinion. If you don't want other opinions that disagree with yours, don't post on a public board. And, don't take things so personally. I have no idea who you are.

You stated (in another thread) that you are in the military. Thank you for your service.

My apologizes I didn't mean to get "hot headed". Thank you for the thanks of being in the military. Well you don't need to convert the whole network to Linux. Linux has a feature, SMB, that works both ways with Linux and Windows file transfer. I am running a game server where the games are accessed off a Linux machine, but being ran by a Windows machine. So it is possible to do it. Just make a machine with Linux, set up some SMB accounts, then tell everyone about it. You will also have to make a script launcher for it. That isn't to hard you can find one off the internet.