Customizing a Terminal Server for appropriate user visual environment is something of an art.
The reasons for this are pretty basic. Every variant of a particular Microsoft operating system version has an essentially identical GUI configuration, and even variants from about the same time frame (NT4 compared to Windows 95B, Windows 2000 compared to Windows Me) share a lot of common features.
Each product development group at Microsoft has its own agenda, and to a certain extent the UI reflects the need for a common configuration. Terminal Services application mode configuration modifies many things, but pretty much leaves the UI untouched.
Let's take a look at the major areas of the Terminal Server desktop to examine what may be done in an aggressive modification job to clean up details. The key areas are the actual desktop, the QuickLaunch bar, and the Start Menu. We are going to ignore application install specific issues for now.
Thanks to the Internet Explorer group, we have 2 icons which always appear that we usually do not want in an enterprise: the Internet Connection Wizard and Outlook Express.
Both should be gone for pretty much obvious reasons. First of all, Internet connectivity is already handled by an administrator. Second, the email client of choice is usually predecided and configured by an Administrator, and the common choice - Outlook - can be easily confused with OE by inexperienced users.
One item here may need to be removed: Outlook Express again.
This has layers of issues.
Windows Update should be missing.
Accessories
ICW, Network and Dialup Connections, and Phone Dialer
System Tools: Disk Defragmenter and Backup
Administrative Tools: Generally, users should see NOTHING in here.
Q263837 - OLEXP: How to Manually Uninstall and Reinstall Outlook Express in Windows 2000
There has to be a faster way.