I want a user to see a shortcut on their desktop only when they log into a virtual terminal session

Question

We have a set of Windows Virtual Terminal servers, with some connecting to them via PCs (allowing them to see their roaming profile desktops on the PC's desktop, and on their VTS desktops) and some connecting via thin clients (so they can only see their RP desktops on th VTS desktop).

I have a particular program I want to make available to a single user, only when they are logged onto the VTS. The program can only run from the VTS, so there's no point in having an icon shown when they're logged into the PC.

Is there a sane/easy way to do this?

Apologies if this is light on details, I'm a programmer, not a sysadmin, so this is all fairly big magic to me right at the moment. I'll endeavour to clarify any details...

Solution

Group Policy Preferences is an easy solution for this, you'll want to make use of the Item-level targeting feature.

1. GPO> User Configuration> Preferences> Windows Settings> Shortcuts
2. right-click New> Shortcut
3. Fill in needed info into all fields like name, target, location, icon etc. then go to the Common tab
4. Check the box for Item-level targeting and click the box for Targeting...
5. Click New Item drop-down and Terminal Session might be what you want to use.

Also you can add multiple targeting options there with all operators you might need, so you can add the one user but you should probably create a security group (with that one user and others who might be added later) and target it to that security group as well. Prevents the need to create an entire new GPO for just one shortcut.

Comments

[Zapto]

What is the termianl server running?

[Frosty840]

@t1nt1n It's Windows Server 2008 all the way through, I believe.

[Frosty840]

After consultation with my more-learned colleagues, I am told that the user in question is part of a larger group of users. If I'm applying this policy to a group of users, how can I make sure that he's the only one who sees the icon?

[Jordan W.]

One of the targeting options is User. you can just target it to the one user. I would target it to yourself (or a test account) first to make sure it shows up where, when and how you expect.