TS CAL Maintenance Tool
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8/28/2008
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) adds the Terminal Services client access license (TS CAL) maintenance tool to Control Panel in the Thin Client Shell. This tool displays TS CAL tokens for devices that connect to a Terminal Server. This includes thin clients and self-service kiosks.
Note
This tool provides an easy method of managing TS CALs, but does not replace having to purchase them by using the appropriate sales channels. TS CAL tokens are electronic representations of real licenses. However, they are not actual licenses.
The TS CAL maintenance tool requires that RDP is in the run-time image. It can be used in any OS design that supports Control Panel programs, such as the Enterprise Terminal OS design.
TS CAL Maintenance Tool Source Code
This tool is provided in public code in %_WINCEROOT%\Public\Rdp\Oak\Uit\licinfo.cpp. If it meets your needs for CAL maintenance, you can use it without modification. If it does not meet your needs, you can use it as a template and design your own user interface (UI) for presenting license information.
If you design your own UI for presenting license information, you must link your code to the helper library, Licinfo.lib, in the same manner as the TS CAL maintenance tool links to it.
Obtain TS CAL License Tokens
The Terminal Services license server stores all TS CAL license tokens that have been installed for a group of terminal servers, and it tracks licenses issued.
The following list shows you how to obtain TS CAL tokens.
- When an RDP client first connects to the terminal server, the server uses a discovery process to locate the license servers. There can be multiple license servers for one Terminal Server. For example, rdp-autotest2 can access an enterprise license server MY-CORP-LS and a domain license server corp01.toledo.
The Terminal Server stores information about the license servers it discovered in the following registry keys.- Enterprise license servers: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing\Parameters\EnterpriseServerMulti
- Domain license servers: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing\Parameters\DomainLicenseServerMulti
- The license server responds with a temporary token for the device. A grace period begins that enables the client to connect to the server without a permanent license. This grace period allows for the IT administrator to purchase the license.
- The next time that the RDP client tries to connect to the server, the license server issues a permanent CAL, if one is available. If one is not available, the client continues to use the temporary CAL.
For more information about Terminal Services licensing, see this Microsoft Web site.