Establishing Preferred Windows 2000 Terminal Services License Server

ID: Q239107

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SUMMARY

To select a specific license server for use with various Windows 2000 Terminal Services servers within a domain or site, you can modify the registry to point to a particular license server. You can do this to specify that all Terminal Services servers work with a particular license server for accounting purposes, or if a Terminal Services server and the license server reside in different domains.

MORE INFORMATION

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys and Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it. If you are running Windows NT, you should also update your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD).

To select a specific license server, locate the following path in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TermService\Parameters

Add the following value:

Name: DefaultLicenseServer
Data type: REG_SZ
Data value: ServerName

Substitute the name of the appropriate license server for ServerName. Selecting a specific license server allows administrators to select a license server at a site and have Terminal Services servers from various domains located at the same site. This allows the Terminal Services servers to use one license server, instead of requiring a local license server for each domain. Currently, Terminal Services servers work with license servers in their own domain, which may force them to use wide area network (WAN) links to find a license server, even if there is a license server from another domain located at the same site. The method described above allows the crossing of domains for license tracking and accounting.

NOTE: If the preferred license server is not available, a Terminal Services server uses the next available license server in the domain.

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbenv
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo