I am new to setting up servers and managing servers. I am beginning to dive into setting up a server for our company, so please bear with me for my lack of knowledge.
Is it possible that all the programs that we need to use can be installed on the server and then accessed from any of the other PC's that are connected to that domain without the software being installed on each of the PC's? Or does the software have to be installed on every PC just like before?
You can run programs on the server computer's CPU. Solutions like Remote Desktop Services (previously called Terminal Services) work that way. The server's CPU, RAM, and disk storage are being used. Each client is, conceptually, an extended keyboard/mouse/monitor attached to the server computer. Don't think of the clients as computers in that scenario, because they're really not acting like computers.
This type of scenario is typically used for very "task-oriented" applications (call center, kiosk, etc) where the client device might be a "thin" client device, or where the client devices are connected via low bandwidth connections. (It's pretty typical to deploy applications that are bandwidth-hungry over low-bandwidth WANs by doing this very thing.)
On the other side of the coin, some programs are installed with the intention of the program's files being stored on a server computer's hard disk drive, but having the program executed on the CPU of computers that are clients of that server. In this case, the server computer can be considered, conceptually, just a hard disk drive that the client is using to recall the program from. The server computer's CPU isn't actually executing the program. It's just shipping the bits of the program across the wire to the client, which is executing the program.
Edit:
There is no "right" or "wrong" way to host applications. It depends on your specific application licensing costs, and your hardware. There's no black-and-white answer.
In a Remote Desktop-type scenario, for example, you will have Microsoft licensing costs that you won't have in a scenario with locally-installed applications (or applications hosted as a file share on a file server computer but executed on client computers). Your application software may have a different license fee structure, as well.
Your server hardware "horsepower" needs will be different with a Remote Desktop scenario versus locally-installed applications.
There are a number of ways to do what you are looking for. The easiest way would be to setup the server as an RDS (Remote Desktop Services) server and allow users to connect via RDP to the server and run their applications. This will push all processing onto the server and you may run into other issues depending on the applications.
Other ways to do similar things include using RemoteApp which leverages RDS, utilizing other 3rd party solutions (Citrix XenApp for example), or doing something a little different on the application virtualization front (App-V or ThinApp for example).
If you are using windows servers then, Remote desktop services is the best choice in your environment. First you must assess the no of clients which are going to connect the server at any given time. Then you have to purchase and install Terminal Server Licenses for the server from microsoft for allowing RDS. For a start you can install the demo licence in the server which would work upto 90 days and will expire. You can search for configuration of RDS applications like microsoft word, excel or any such applications which are basically used by everyone. Though it requires little know how of the server client and network domain, it can be configured easily. Just give it a try and ask more questions when you are struck.
Best thing is to buy licenses as per the no of computers.
(Basically called Client Access Licenses- CAL)
On the other hand if not all computers are going to connect at a time, you may go easy and buy user based licenses. That is if you have 1000 computers and approximately 500 users at any given time to access your rds applications, you should go for some 500-600 licenses. Use this link for more clarification on server 2003 setup Link to CAL buying guide.
