On Linux, you can have setups where a computer boots via PXE, or from a minimal boot partition; and the initramfs then mounts an NFS share as the root partition. Is anything like this possible on Windows? i.e. boot from a minimal system partition, or maybe WinPe via PXE; and then mount the C: drive and whatnot from CIFS network shares? I've been Googling around, but not found anything on it yet.
IMO windows was not really designed to run from network. thin clients went out of trend, those work remote on a server. Windows with PXE https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744541(v=ws.10).aspx HTH
Thanks @Brummelchen. I was basically thinking "virtual thin clients." Or maybe "streaming Windows as a local network service." i.e. have Virtualbox or such boot Windows 7 off a network share. Handle the processing and user data locally; but keep the actual OS (and a big chunk of disk I/O) on one server. Mind, when one starts thinking up crazy solutions like this, it might just be time to upgrade... Edit: and yeah, remote desktop would be nice. Problem is - RDP is iffy, and only available on pro/business versions of Windows - VNC is stupid and can't stream audio - VNC over SSH is slow and can't stream audio NX might work, but last I checked it looked pretty limited too. (And I honestly don't understand what's so hard about one-way audio over a remote desktop connection. How is it any different from a live podcast, or other streaming audio?)
not sure what you try to achieve. in times with ssd or smart cards in combination with nuc or similar i would go that way with win embedded environment. my knowledge about thins is limited, sorry.
