The advantages of a Terminal Server for Remote use is that it is much quicker than a traditional mapped drive using a VPN and all the applications are accessible. For example, if your Accountant wanted to access your Accounts package from home, the only realistic way of achieving this is via Terminal Services which would allow them to work as if they were in the office.

For internal use, the main advantage of a Terminal Server it that it significantly reduces the amount of support required to maintain desktops. The other advantage is that you can save money – instead of PCs, you can buy thin clients which are cheaper as they don’t have a hard drive and don’t require a Microsoft Operating System. In a business with a standard server and PCs running Microsoft Office, you would have to load Office to all the PCs on your network. Then you would need to maintain every PC, checking for viruses, ensuring that both Office and the Operating System is patched and correctly functioning and ensure files are not being stored on the desktop (security problems and unlikely to be backed up). However deploying a Terminal Server would mean Office would be installed just once on the server and all the clients would connect to the Terminal server and use the same version of Office.