Visual Studio products are not supported on Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server

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This article was previously published under Q272707

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SUMMARY

Visual Studio and the products that are contained in Visual Studio have not been tested and are not officially supported when you run them in a Terminal Server client session using Terminal Server on Windows NT 4.0.

Visual Studio .NET and Visual Studio 2005 products are not supported on WinNT 4.0 Terminal Server. They are supported on NT 4.0 with Service Pack Pack 6a and Windows 2000 Terminal Server or later.

Visual Studio 6.0 is supported on Microsoft Windows 2000 Terminal Services.

The system requirements for Visual Studio 6.0 are:

Microsoft Windows 95 or later -or-
Windows NT Workstation 4.0 (Service Pack 3 recommended) or later -or-
Windows 2000

The system requirements for Visual Studio 97 are:

Windows 95 or later -or-
Windows NT Workstation 4.0 (Service Pack 2 recommended) or later -or-
Windows NT Workstation 3.51 with Service Pack 5

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MORE INFORMATION

Terminal Server is available on Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition. Windows Terminal Services are also on Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server. Terminal Server/Terminal Services allows a Windows Server to act as a terminal server for multiple, simultaneous client sessions. Although you can successfully install and run Visual Studio on a terminal client, the behavior of Visual Studio in this environment is not guaranteed on Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition.

Various problems have been reported in this environment. For example, after you install Visual Studio 6.0 on Terminal Server, you cannot open the Help system. If you press the F1 key to access Help in a Visual Studio product, such as Visual C++, a Help System dialog box appears with the following error message:

Attempting to use an invalid help file

NOTE: These issues are moot if you are using Windows Terminal Services, which are available on Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server. During the installation of Visual Studio .NET or Visual Studio 2005, the Windows Component Update may prompt you to update Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server to Service Pack 6a, even though Service Pack 6a does not exist.

Visual Studio .NET and Visual Studio 2005 are not supported on Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server, only on Windows 2000 Terminal Server or higher.

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REFERENCES

For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Visual Studio

195878 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/195878/EN-US/ ) PRB: MSDN Help Cannot Find msdn*.col File on Terminal Server
240302 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240302/EN-US/ ) PRB: MSDN Library Setup Fails on Terminal Server in Execute Mode
240301 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240301/EN-US/ ) HOWTO: Use the MSDN Library Successfully with Terminal Server
232060 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/232060/EN-US/ ) HOWTO: MDAC Setup Troubleshooting Guide

Visual Basic Specific

196201 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196201/EN-US/ ) INFO: Visual Basic Is Not Supported on Terminal Server 4.0
194776 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/194776/EN-US/ ) HOWTO: Install a Visual Basic Application on Terminal Server

Visual C++ Specific

272755 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272755/EN-US/ ) INFO: Visual C++ Is Not Supported on Terminal Server 4.0
200983 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/200983/EN-US/ ) HOWTO: How to Install Visual C++ on Terminal Server

Visual FoxPro

272756 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272756/EN-US/ ) INFO: Visual FoxPro Is Not Supported on Terminal Server 4.0
219956 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/219956/EN-US/ ) PRB: Too Many Files Open Running VFP on Windows Terminal Server
258537 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/258537/EN-US/ ) FIX: CONFIG.FPW Setting for Terminal Server Environment
268558 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/268558/EN-US/ ) Visual FoxPro on Terminal Services Cannot Start Two Wizards
249716 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249716/EN-US/ ) HOWTO: Use NetRemoteTOD to Obtain Date/Time Info from a Server

Visual InterDev

272758 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272758/EN-US/ ) INFO: Visual InterDev Is Not Supported on Terminal Server 4.0
256197 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256197/EN-US/ ) PRB: Visual InterDev 6.0 Debugging Fails Under Terminal Server

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