I think your best bet would be Terminal Services with dummy terminals on the user end. You have a couple choices when it comes to the dummy terminals, you could purchase a Wyse WinTerm or something like it or use existing outdated PC's with something like ThinStation.

The advantages of WinTerm are that it is the size of a small book, uses very little power and is easy to reset if configuration gets messed up. The only disadvantage I see is the cost.

The biggest advantage of ThinStation on existing outdated hardware is the cost while the disadvantage are size, power and possibility of more going wrong with it. (ie NIC, video, sound, cdrom, powersupply goes bad)

Wyse also has an Enterprise Desktop Virtualization solution which allows you to have your desktops virtualized, then you can connect to them via a WinTerm or ThinStation. Of course you could do this with VMware also.

I have used the WinTerms and ThinStations together with Terminal Services and the results are quite nice. Considering the amount of users you will have using this, I suggest you setup multiple Terminal Servers. Using Session Directory, clustering and moving the local profiles to a clustered disk, you can insure that a user will be reconnected to the same server and session if they are disconnected. The will also always have the same desktop and profile because the TS will be using the profiles from the clustered disk. (This is different from Roaming Profiles because if the user logs into a machine other than the Terminals Server cluster, they will not have their profile. That was always the desired effect for my clients anyway.)

LINKS:
Wyse Desktop Virtualization - http://www.wyse.com/solutions/edv/
ThinStation - http://thinstation.sourceforge.net/


I hope that helps.

-Joe
http://joe.galactik.com

I like the Wyse solutions. Very nice. No moving parts is big plus (depending on the model). Couple it with a beefy TS box, and life is good.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP

In our environment, a concrete company, the dust from the cement and flyash will kill a pc.

I pick up Wyse thin clients and my guys use them to conenct to a win2k terminal server ( as win2k3 wont run our legacy app)

Works great and out of about 20 I have, only 1 has gone out in the past 2 years.

Chris
IT Manager
Houston, Texas

Geez I didn't see the date of that last post - sorry.

Chris
IT Manager
Houston, Texas

Are you still looking for a Thin Client Solution?
I know a Successful Company in NY that uses a Number of Thin Solutions- I think a Linux Server is best with Thin Clients and/or Legacy PC's too.
The More Software on the Server- The Better.