Virtual CD Terminal Server

---

One of the main drawbacks of a thin client is the inability to physically access the terminal server’s optical drive to change discs.  Even if someone is available to place a CD in the terminal server, the optical drive would be shared with all clients, making it awkward and tedious for clients to access different discs, not to mention having to ask the operator to switch discs all the time.  This is where the Virtual CD terminal server comes in, as each client can have its own set of virtual drives and media.

When installing Virtual CD Terminal Server, it will give the option of whether to use virtual drives or virtual writers, but not a combination of both.  It is not possible to change from one type to another without reinstalling Virtual CD, so it is important to determine whether any client may need access to a virtual burner: 

Unlike the installation of the client or file server, once the Terminal Server is installed, no virtual drives are configured by default:

Like with the Virtual CD client, a client can add one or more virtual drives.  However, as we mentioned, only drives of the type selected during installation can be created.  During our setting up of the terminal server, we selected the ‘Virtual Burner’ option, so this is the drive type available in the editor:

Once the drives have been selected or changed, it will take a short while for this to take effect (a few seconds on our server):

One issue we encountered is that when the drives are set up for the first time after the installation, they come up as unrecognised drives in “My Computer”:

If we attempt to open one of these Virtual drives, regardless of whether a Virtual medium is loaded, it displays the following error:

We contacted H+H software about this issue and it turns out that the terminal server must be rebooted after setting up the drives for the first time before they can be used.  This is despite what they mention on their website about the terminal server not requiring a reboot after installation.  Once we rebooted, both drives showed up once we mounted virtual media in each:

After the initial reboot, from our testing, it is possible to add or remove virtual drives without the need to reboot again.  The same goes when other clients add drives for the first time on their profile.

Handling of multiple users

To show the Terminal Server edition in action, we opened up two thin client connections to the server.  On the first client, we setup two drives with letters ‘F’ & ‘G’, placed the virtual CD we created of our installation disc in drive ‘F’ and the virtual CD we created of our Windows Server 2003 disc in drive ‘G’.  On the second client, we set up one drive, giving it letter ‘F’ and inserted a virtual blank DVD-R.  On the first client, we started the Virtual CD setup and on the second client, we started the burn process of some files using ImgBurn.  As the following screenshot shows, Virtual CD has no problem handling the virtual burning of a disc with one client while reading back a virtual CD with another client, despite both clients using the same drive letter on their terminals:

If a Virtual CD is locked by a client, such as during a write process while another client attempts to mount this Virtual CD, it will appear as if no disc is mounted to the other client:

User Profiles

Just like how terminal server client users are not usually given administrative access to a terminal server, the Virtual CD Terminal Server version gives the ability to set up user profiles to limit what users have access to which features.  The profile editor can be accessed from the Virtual CD tray icon menu.  If the Virtual CD Terminal Server is configured by a network management server, the local profile editor is disabled, as the profiles would be provided by the network management server instead.

When the profile editor is first launched, it has a default profile configured to provide access to all programs and most features by default.  This profile cannot be removed and is applied to all client users, so the first thing that needs to be done is to decide on which features and programs that should be made available to everyone who has access to the Terminal Server and disable the rest.  After this, profiles can be set up to specify which additional features are available to specified users and groups.  The following screenshot shows an example of two profiles we set up:

Adding a new profile is straight forward by clicking the ‘New profile’ icon and giving a name, description and whether to copy from an existing profile:

Afterwards, it is just a matter of editing the profile.  In the editor, it is possible to select which features, Virtual CD programs, Directories, Drive access features and users/groups apply to the profile:

To give an example of a profile being put into effect, we set up a profile called “Existing Discs”, giving access to the Virtual CD letter ‘T’ and the CD Management, CD & Catalogue search, Tool Box and Quick Start features:

Once we applied the profile to a user-group and logged a user from the group as a client, the following screen shows the drive letter ‘T’ set up, list of existing Virtual CDs we prepared earlier and the much more limited feature set from the file menu.  For example, there are no options to create a blank medium, burn an image, create a virtual CD and so on, as these have not been enabled by any of the profiles that apply to the user:

If one tries accessing a program feature they do not have enabled in any profile that applies to them, such as through a short-cut, etc. they would get the following error:

Virtual CD File Server

---

The file server edition of Virtual CD is much like the Virtual CD Client, but provides several additional features for use as a CD server.  One of the main features is doing away with sharing out large numbers of optical drives by simply creating Virtual CDs all the CDs to share out and then share these out using Virtual Drives.  While it is possible to share out Virtual CDs using the client edition, it imposes a limit of one connection per virtual CD drive and any attempt to edit the number of shared connections will result in the figure being set back to ‘1’.  If a second a second client tries accessing the drive, they will get the following error:

The setting up of the file server edition is much like that of the client.  The Toolbox has an extra feature to create CD collections, while the “Create a Virtual CD client setup” toolbox feature is not present.  While Virtual CD does not impose the one client sharing restriction like the Virtual CD client, in order to connect more than 10 clients simultaneously to a shared virtual drive, the Virtual CD File Server must be installed on a Windows server, such as Windows Server 2003.  For our review, we installed it on PC 2.

Creating a Collection

As the Windows operating system is limited to 26 drive letters, usually with at least 3 taken between the floppy drive, OS hard disk and a physical optical drive, it is only possible to share out a certain number of physical drives.  In order for Virtual CD to share out more drives, this is where its CD collection comes into use.  The collection feature is also useful for grouping discs of a particular program together without having to take up multiple drive letters.  In this example, we will show the process of preparing to share out a collection consisting of the Office 2000, XP and 2003 Professional discs.  Before a disc can be made part of a collection, it must be first in the ISO file format.  A non ISO file, such as an ‘NRG’ image, can be converted by selecting the images in the CD management and selecting ‘Convert’ from the ‘Edit’ menu.  The program to create a collection can be accessed in the Toolbox.  The first screen provides fields to enter a disc label, description and comment for the collection:

In our example, we’re creating a collection of office CDs.  The next screen gives the option to password protect the collection and whether to have a working program for it, etc. when it is loaded:

The next screen provides two list windows to select which CDs to add to the collection.  Only suitable discs present in the CD management views are available here.  For example, if there is an ‘NRG’ image in the CD management, it will not appear here until it has been converted first.  The same goes with DVD-RAM Virtual CDs.

Finally, the collection appears in the Virtual CD management view, where it can be inserted into a virtual drive:

Once the collection is mounted, the virtual drive can be shared out like sharing out any other optical drive:

Regardless of how many CDs have been put in a collection, only one share will appear on the network, which will be the share name given for the drive.  It is possible to map the full collection as a local drive letter by mapping the share name.  Alternatively a single disc within the collection can be mapped by selecting the disc label within the share when mapping a network drive:

While it is possible to access the shared drives without Virtual CD client software on the clients, the network Virtual CD drives have the most of the same limitations as sharing out physical CD drives over the network.  For example, special types of Virtual CD images such as virtual Audio CDs and titles containing physical copy protection measures cannot be shared out over the network using Windows file sharing.  These can only be accessed by clients that have the Virtual CD clients on their PCs. 

Network Management Server

---

The Network Management Server provides centralised control and management over Virtual CD clients, the file server and terminal server, including what features to enable in each program to which users, controlling and tracking license usage, logging usage, deploying Virtual CD clients and various other functions.  Due to the range of functionality in the Network Management Server, we will look at just a few features to show it in action. 

Installing the Network Management Server

The Network Management Server consists of two parts – the NMS Service and the NMS Administration.  The NMS Service is installed on a server that will control the clients, while the NMS Administration installs the front-end administrative components for the NMS Service.  This NMS Administration can be installed on the NMS Server or on a client PC.  However, if the NMS Administration components are installed on multiple machines, only one user can use it at a time.  The choice of which to install appears during the NMS installation:

During the installation, it will ask for a port number to listen on.  While we were able to install this on a Windows XP machine, the Windows Firewall needs to be configured to open the port NMS uses for the scope of the clients in order to allow clients to connect to it:

When the NMS Administration program is run for the first time, it needs to be configured with access to the Network Management Server’s data and scripts directories.  These locations should have full read & write access for the user using the NMS Administration program:

After this, the Virtual CD NMS program shows:

As the NMS can be used to control client licenses, we will enter the Virtual CD license codes we have for the clients and file server as an example.  These can be entered in the bottom tab titled “Virtual CD license code”.  Here, we entered the client license code and the file server license code.  Their use count adds up as clients connect to the NMS and goes back down when a client user logs off or turns off the PC.

NMS features the ability to password protect access to the NMS configurations on the client PC, control disc licenses, register virtual CDs with the NMS and various logging features.  For example, if a company had a program that runs from CD and has 5 licenses for the disc, then the NMS can be configured to only allow 5 clients to insert this CD simultaneously.  Any further will be receive the following error.  The following shows the logging features available:

Connecting clients to the Network Management Server

Once the Network Management Server is set up, the existing clients need to be configured to use the Network Management Server.  This configuration can be accessed by going into the Virtual CD tray icon, into the ‘Settings’ sub-menu, then ‘Network’ and selecting ‘Configure’ on the dialogue that appears:

On this screen, the client can be configured to obtain its license from the NMS for centralised license control.  To make use of registered CDs, the global virtual CDs and configuration path can be provided in the network configuration screen:

Within the NMS program, it is possible to see which computers have registered with the NMS, assuming these PCs have users already logged on:

Managing the clients

Like with the Terminal Server, it is possible to set up user profiles to apply to clients to restrict what users or PCs have access to or even to set up scripts, Virtual CD paths, etc. with users and PCs.  Another useful feature is the ability to directly manage the drives of the clients and see what PCs have what loaded in each drive.  The following shows the management of Virtual Drives:

Here, it is possible to lock and unlock drives or even insert and remove Virtual CDs registered with the NMS.  The management also has the ability to lock/unlock physical drives.  For example, if an administrator spots that one has an unauthorised disc inserted in their PC’s physical drive, the administrator can lock the drive, which will cause the loaded disc to be ejected and prevent any disc being inserted until the lock is removed.  If a virtual drive is locked and one tries loading or ejecting a virtual disc, they will be presented with the following error:

Over-burning & User-defined DVDs

Conclusion