Your terminal services temporary client license will expire in x d

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I have a Citrix MetaFrame XPa 1.0 for Win2k server farm, all the Citrix
servers in the farm have been configured (via registry configuration) to
point to a Windows Terminal Licensing Server which is Win2K Sp4. Both the
Citrix servers in the farm and that Terminal Licensing Server are member
servers of a Windows 2003 AD (or domain). This configuration has been
working for over 2 years without problem.

According to Microsoft TS CAL policy, TS CAL is NOT required for XP and
Win2k Professional edition. However, my users have recently reported that
they have been coming across the message " Your terminal services temporary
client license will expire in x days. Please contact your system
administrator to get a permanent license." where x is the number of days
remain.

I have checked against the Terminal Licensing Service of that Licensing
Server and found that quite a lot of permanent license were expired, and a
lot of temporary TS CAL is pending for permanent license renewal. It seems
that the Terminal Licensing Server fails to release the expired permanent TS
CAL and prevents those temporary license from renewal.

How can I resolve this issuse?

Moreover, why do my XP and Win2k Professional users come across this message
as XP and Win2k professional don't require TS CAL?
 
The only thing that I don't understand in your posting is that this
has been working for 2 years, because this is not supposed to work.
Maybe you W2K TS Licensing Server joined the 2003 domain a couple
of months ago?

The W2K Terminal Services Licensing Server *cannot* run on a member
server in a domain. It must run on a Domain Controller.
You can verify this by looking at the EventLog on your W2K LS,
which should record the following Events:

Event ID 29
Terminal Services Licensing can only be run on Domain Controllers
or Server in a Workgroup.

Event ID 7024
The Terminal Services Licensing service terminated with service-
specific error 29.

So you have to install the TS Licensing Service on your 2003 DC.

About the TS CALs requirements: this is a widely spread
misunderstanding.
W2K Pro and XP Pro *do* need a TS CAL.
BUT: you don't have to purchase a TS CAL for those clients, they
receive a free TS CAL from the built-in pool of "Existing Windows
2000 TS CALs" on the Licensing Server. That means that if the
Terminal Server cannot locate a functional TS Licensing Server, the
clients cannot get their free TS CAL, and thus cannot connect.

_________________________________________________________
Vera Noest
MCSE, CCEA, Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
TS troubleshooting: http://ts.veranoest.net
___ please respond in newsgroup, NOT by private email ___
 
I can't find the Event ID 29 or 7024 in the Security Log, Application Log and
System log of that Terminal Service Licensing Server.

Moreover, according to Microsoft article "Establishing Preferred Windows
2000 Terminal Services License Server" (previously published under Q239107),
the Terminal Service Licensing Server can be designated and specified by
setting a registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TermService\Parameters.
Thus, I have configured this registry key for all Citrix XPa servers in the
farm to point to that Terminal Service Licensing Server for around 2 years
without problem.

I have also checked against the AD administrator who told me that the
functional level of the AD had been changed from Win2k native to Windows 2003
native around 2 months ago. This is the big changed which happens recently.

Any idea to further diagnose the problem? Thx.
 
It's important that you differentiate between what's possible on
the *Terminal* Server and what's possible on the TS *Licensing*
Server.

Sure, you can point a Terminal Server to use any TS Licensing
Server by hardcoding the address in the registry of the Terminal
Server.

But that doesn't mean that the TS Licensing Server which you point
it to can actually run on that computer.

Since I don't understand how your setup has been running in the
first place, I have no further advice, apart from phoning
Microsoft Support.

FYI: Here is the KB article which documents that a W2K TS
Licensing Server cannot run on a member server. Only exceptions
are if the W2K server is a stand-alone server in a workgroup, or a
member server in an NT4.0 domain.

277917 - Terminal Server Licensing Service Failure
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=277917

_________________________________________________________
Vera Noest
MCSE, CCEA, Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
TS troubleshooting: http://ts.veranoest.net
*----------- Please reply in newsgroup -------------*
 
If I install the Terminal Server Licensing Service on one of the DC, how can
I prevent unexpected users from getting the TS CAL? This is because, I have
to reserv TS CAL for remote users' connectivity to Citrix XPa only NOT for
any other LAN environment PCs/servers.
 
By not allowing those users to connect through Terminal Services.
Note however that your TS CALs are Per Device, not Per User. So
even if you allow only a few users to connect, they could still
grab all of your TS CALs by connecting from different clients.
This is of course not a problem if all clients run W2K Pro or XP
Pro.
_________________________________________________________
Vera Noest
MCSE, CCEA, Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
TS troubleshooting: http://ts.veranoest.net
___ please respond in newsgroup, NOT by private email ___
 
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