Thin client network

Wig

My work place does not turn off it's thin clients at the end of the day or Bank Hol weekend.

They say that "something might have to download overnight, and that the little boxes are turned off remotely overnight"

The first bit sounds to me like BS, the whole idea of a thin client is that nothing is held in the box, all your profile and data are held on the network server all you are doing is logging into the network so what would need to "download" to your thin client?

The second bit sounds reasonable but I have yet to confirm with the first people who arrive in the office each morning
if they are all switched off every morning, having been left on when we left the night before.

System

Have a read of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client . Thin client doesn't mean that there is no deskside system running so an overnight update of the system is a possibility

Mr_Toad

Do your 'thin clients' have an operating system?

We use client server for the major applications but the individual machines are still just a PC that runs Windows 7.

Personal files and documents are stored on the PC with automatic backup of selected directories to a server elsewhere.

These machines still need updates to the OS, core software and the client software and these updates are done out of hours so the machines are left on.

Our machines will be turned off remotely after update and back on again between 05:00 and 06:30 ready for the working day. As far as the users are concerned they look like they never go off.

hjibds

Thin clients do have an operating system, usually a version of windows embedded or a Linux variant.
This is what may require updates 'downloads'.

This usually just runs a connector weather Remote Desktop, Citrix or vmware.

The software used for managing the thin clients can remotely turn them off and using wake on LAN power them back on.