Planning on setting up a small single server and need this functionality:
* 3 local users runnnig Windows 7 Home Premium needs to access files on the server
* The same 3 users should also be able to connect from home (PC, Mac, iPhone) and run an application on the server. (Session-Based Remote Desktop).
We want to use Windows Server 2012, and found out that Essentials does not support RDP, so that leaves Foundation and Standard versions.
However, I also found out that in WS 2012 the RDP can not be on the same server as the Domain Controller, and we therefor needs to run 2 server instances on our hardware. I think this starts to look way to complicated for what we want to do, but found out that WS 2012 R2 allows a single server to run RDP (See TechNet article 2833839).
So we will go for Windows Server 2012 R2, either Foundation or Standard to set up our RDP.
So now the question: Will that solution work with our local machines running Windows 7 Home Premium, as they cannot connect to a domain? Can we set up some kind of simple file share or Workgroup to acces files locally while still keeping the RDP functionality on the server?
And, will WS 2012 Foundation R2 do this as well as WS 2012 Standard R2?
(I have been asking several locat MS representatives to find a solution to our needs, but no one seems to know how this works....of cause we could just get 2 WS 2012 Standard server instances, run one as DC and on as RDCB and upgrade all our clients to Win 7 Pro, but we would like a solution with minimal investment in time and money)
Rgds
Petter