Use a low-power OS to access high-power networks
When you think about Windows-based net-work client OSs, Windows 2000 Professional (Win2K Pro), Windows NT Workstation, Windows 9x, and Windows 3.x probably come to mind. You might not consider Windows CE, but you should.
Windows CE is a lightweight Win32 OS designed for portable devices in a low-memory environment. Whereas other OSs reside on the hard disk, Windows CE resides in read-only memory (ROM). In fact, Windows CE devices rarely have hard disks. Rather than going through the entire boot sequence to load the OS (i.e., counting memory, recognizing the disk, reading the disk, loading the important files from the disk into memory), a Windows CE device can start the OS as soon as you turn the device on. You can quickly load files and start applications because you don't have to wait for a hard disk to spin up. Windows CE devices store data and applications in memory, where you can access them instantly.
Windows CE devices have specialized functions that can take several forms. Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) help you keep track of appointments and contact information. Windows-based terminals (WBTs) don't have locally installed applications, but the devices come with the RDP and Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) display protocols. Thus, WBTs can connect to NT and Citrix MetaFrame terminal servers and run applications from these servers. Hand-held PCs (H/PCs) run limited-feature versions of productivity applications that you can use to supplement your desktop PC.
In this article, I discuss the benefits of Windows CE, and I explain how two Windows CE devices—WBTs and H/PCs—can interoperate with Windows 2000- (Win2K-) and NT-based networks. I also discuss how to set up these devices.
Windows CE Benefits
Windows CE supports only a subset of the Win32 API, so the OS can't do everything that NT and Win9x can. However, Windows CE's limitations give it certain advantages. The OS is great for portable devices. Accessing a hard disk or CD-ROM is a power-hungry operation. Windows CE devices don't need hard disks because the OS can fit in ROM. Thus, portable Windows CE devices have a much longer battery life than laptop computers running NT or Win9x do. Storing the smaller OS doesn't take up much memory, so Windows CE WBTs don't require nearly as much memory as NT-embedded WBTs such as Netier's NetXpress. Using less memory helps keep unit costs down.
Windows CE devices are easy to manage. They typically have few moving parts (e.g., no hard disks, no CD-ROM drives), so they're less likely to break than full-fledged PCs are. To update a Windows CE device with new applications or drivers, you use a desktop PC set up to manage Windows CE devices. For example, to update NCD's WBTs to use NCD ThinPATH Plus, you need to configure only one server to update the terminal clients. You configure each WBT to find its management server, which you load updates on. Then, you cycle the power on the WBTs to let them download changes and update their flash memory. Similarly, to manage several H/PCs, you can partner them with one NT desktop machine. If you updated the Windows CE services on the NT machine, the H/PCs would update the next time they connected to it.
Finally, Windows CE devices let you run applications without all the overhead of a PC. The types of applications you can run on a Windows CE device and the conditions under which you can run them vary. Because WBTs access applications from a terminal server, they can run any applications that run on NT in a terminal server environment. However, a WBT can run these applications only if the device is connected to a terminal server. H/PCs and PDAs can't run Win32 applications, but they can run limited-function Windows CE applications that they store in memory. Some of these limited applications are more useful than others. For example, you can use Microsoft Pocket Word to create simple text documents that you can later import into Word for final touches, but Microsoft Pocket PowerPoint can only display PowerPoint presentations—so if you're using an H/PC to power a slide show, you can't edit the presentation file before showtime.
Windows CE WBTs
A WBT is a device designed expressly for communicating with a terminal server. (For information about terminal services and terminal servers, see the sidebar "Terminal Services and Terminal Servers.") The first Windows CE-based WBTs hit the market in the fall of 1998. Not all WBTs use Windows CE for their local OS, but many do. Windows CE is the only low-memory OS that supports RDP. Thus, you need Windows CE WBTs if you want to connect to terminal servers that aren't running MetaFrame. For a list of Windows CE WBTs, see "Windows CE-based WBTs."
Setting up a Windows CE WBT to use on a Win2K or NT network is easy: You plug the keyboard, monitor, and mouse into the appropriate ports, and you connect the device to the network. When you power up a WBT for the first time, the device walks you through a setup wizard that prompts you to accept the license agreement and choose a display protocol to use. If the WBT didn't find a DHCP server, you need to provide the name of one. You can also specify a static IP address.
After you complete the basic setup, you can create terminal server connections. A wizard lets you specify the settings for each connection, such as the name of the terminal server and whether you want to access the desktop or run an application. To connect to the terminal server, you double-click the connection from the WBT. After you connect to the terminal server, you'll see the Win2K or NT domain logon screen. Logging on to the network via a terminal session is like logging on to the network from a PC: To connect to a terminal server, you must provide your user account name, your password, and the domain name (if you're logging on to the domain instead of just one server). After the network authenticates you, the WBT's monitor displays the Win2K Server or NT Server desktop. The desktop configuration depends on your user ID's profile and policy settings.