Establishing Preferred Windows 2000 Terminal Services License Server (239107)

Important This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

SUMMARY

To select a specific license server for use with various Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services servers in 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. Microsoft recommends that you use the DefaultLicenseServer registry value to minimize issues with the Terminal Server licensing discovery process.

MORE INFORMATION

Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To select a specific license server, locate the following key 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 NetBIOS name of the appropriate license server for ServerName. If the license server is located on a remote subnet, make sure the Terminal Services-based computer can resolve the NetBIOS name.

Selecting a specific license server enables administrators to select a license server at a site and have Terminal Services servers from various domains located at the same site. This enables 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 enables the crossing of domains for license tracking and accounting.

Note Specifying the DefaultLicenseServer registry value overrides the normal discovery process. If the License Server specified is not available, the Terminal Server will not request licenses from another License Server.

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 uses a different registry value to specify a license server.

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

279561 How to override the license server discovery process in Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services