With Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services, Microsoft made some significant strides towards a solid remote desktop environment that would be scalable and flexible without the need for third-party software, and the software giant is looking to improve it even more with Server 2008. Citrix is working hard to offer more then just remote desktop and application management, but most environments I've dealt with use it specifically for that. Is Microsoft going to eat Citrix's lunch, or will it play along nicely like it did with Diskeeper?

One of new Microsoft features is the ability to put the server into "Drain Mode" where users will be able to reconnect to existing sessions, but no new sessions can be created. This is a great way to push users to other servers in a load-balanced configuration over the course of a few days so you can pull one machine out of production for maintenance. Of course, if your users are anything like mine, they leave their sessions open for a week at a time, but by then it's likely they will only have a few important documents open and unsaved on their desktop.