# Cheapest way to get Terminal Server Licenses, Temporarily **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 6, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939 "2009-06-06T17:33:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/21 "2009-06-08T15:22:25Z")
> [@Mr.Slant](#): > > Dataset is 1.5 GB. > App seems to take up 155 MB of RAM per instance. > Clearly, the CPU gets nailed by this. > The network isn’t getting hit that hard, except when I first fire up the app: it downloads 1.5 GB from a remote server at 1/2 MB per second. > As far as disk I/O, great question. I haven’t really paid that close of attention to that factor. You should make a RAM disk and copy the dataset into there. Does the dataset stay the same each run? If so, you’ll really get a boost. But investigate performance monitoring tools to get a better idea of your bottlenecks. The stats you posted showed a 27% gain\* going from 1 instance to 2. That is not very good. Looking at the Amazon rates, why don’t you just rent out 4 High-CPU Medium servers instead of trying to load up one High-CPU Extra Large? I almost guarantee you’ll get much better performance. \*(3.6min / (5.66min / 2)) = 27% speedup ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/22 "2009-06-08T16:03:06Z")
I like the RAMDISK idea, a lot. The app in question costs $50/mo per computer, otherwise just firing up gobs of High-CPU Medium instances would be the best solution by far. Even so, I’ll do the math. Buying another 3 licenses for the app and running 4 concurrent systems with 2 instances each may ultimately be the best solution. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/23 "2009-06-08T16:17:52Z")
Uh, wait. About the RAMDISK, I’m on a system with 1.7 GB of RAM and my dataset is 1.5 GB. Probably gonna’ be a problem. May want to try the next system up for RAM… ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/24 "2009-06-08T16:26:34Z")
> [@Mr.Slant](#): > > Uh, wait. About the RAMDISK, I’m on a system with 1.7 GB of RAM and my dataset is 1.5 GB. > Probably gonna’ be a problem. May want to try the next system up for RAM… You’ve got a pagefile you can use. 1.5GB + .1 for your app + .1 for windows might be ok (depending which way all the numbers were rounded). Certainly start by turning off all the processes and services you don’t need. I’ve had win2k3 run inside 50 megabytes after being massively nLite’d. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/25 "2009-06-08T17:38:32Z")
Eh, it’s .155 GB x 2 for the app, runing in two instances. Skeptical of getting it ALL in RAM… What RAMDISK app do you suggest? ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/26 "2009-06-08T19:05:45Z")
> [@Mr.Slant](#): > > It appears that this doesn’t work in this instance. > All that seems to happen is that I run the runas command prompt, then the app never shows up on screen, and a minute later I check task manager and it’s not running under the other username. > Sucks, because it should have been a perfect solution. Ah, that sucks indeed. I thought it would work, but clearly as a command-line app, it’s doing some checking to see that it’s the only instance of the process. Is there a Windows launcher that might behave better? Something I found while trawling the net in search of potential solutions is VMWare ThinApp: [http://www.vmware.com/products/thinapp/](http://www.vmware.com/products/thinapp/). It has a 60-day trial, which might be long enough for you to get your analysis done. It’s an application virtualisation solution that allows you to package and run multiple apps as single .exe files, isolated from the OS and without needing to install anything physically. I haven’t looked into it, but it might be one way around this. If all else fails, 5 CALs for Terminal Services will set you back around $400, but I’m not sure if those can be resold or not. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/27 "2009-06-08T20:17:36Z")
I’m sorry; It’s NOT a command-line app. It’s a weird-looking Windows app with a UI that would have been fashionable maybe 8 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/28 "2009-06-08T20:48:24Z")
He can’t run ThinApp on Amazon EC2 because it’d be trying to do virtualization inside virtualization. I haven’t look into RAM disks in a while. I remember there was no clear winner in the space, but maybe things have changed. Honestly I’m not sure if a RAM disk will be an absolute win. Remember, the OS already caches file accesses in RAM (but often it doesn’t do it with absolute efficiency). ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/29 "2009-06-08T21:15:20Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > He can’t run ThinApp on Amazon EC2 because it’d be trying to do virtualization inside virtualization. > SNIP Good point, there. Amazon EC2, in its current form, is Xen with available iSCSI drives. I’m tempted to try putting the “big data set” on, perhaps, a RAID 0 spread across 12 5 GB RAID drives, but I suspect the network overhead would make that slower than just using the C: drive available to the system in the local “Xen” host. ---
**Author:** ![Otanx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Otanx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otanx)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/30 "2009-06-08T22:59:11Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > Is there a catch? Why would a small business buy Server of Office if they can get this? That’s enough Vista and Office for 10 computers, with free upgrades. There are restrictions on who can get it. You have to be a resaler, OEM, or other IT company that sales, or recomends products to other companies. Also the licenses are only good for 1 year unless you renew your membership each year. There is another version that is geared to developers as well. -Otanx ---
**Author:** ![Caldazar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Caldazar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caldazar)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/31 "2009-06-08T23:17:46Z")
> [@Mr.Slant](#): > > I put it in App Server mode using “Manage Your Server”, then rebooted. > I still got an error about not having enough licenses. > Incidentally, XP and Vista being free licenses for TS stopped a few years back, which angered quite a few people. > Looks like my best option might be the “Action Pack”. > Since this is a temporary project, licenses that can be resold would be nice… Terminal Services running in Application Licensing mode can be licensed on a temporary basis. Install Terminal Services in Application mode and set the Licensing mode to Per Device. Install Terminal Services Licensing. Activate the TS licensing server. The temporary Per Device CALs will work for 90 days. ---
**Author:** ![HorseloverFat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8e8cbc/32.png) [@HorseloverFat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorseloverFat)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/32 "2009-06-09T01:21:00Z")
Does it run under wine in linux? Who knows, maybe you can run it 8 times under wine. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939/33 "2009-06-09T05:49:45Z")
> [@Otanx](#): > > There are restrictions on who can get it. You have to be a resaler, OEM, or other IT company that sales, or recomends products to other companies. And how do you prove that? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheapest-way-to-get-terminal-server-licenses-temporarily/498939.md?page=1)