1.3 Overview

In a typical terminal server scenario, many of the nonvolatile resources used by the terminal server user (such as hard drives, flash drives, and floppy disks) are located on the client. The server exposes a file system driver that is visible to server-based applications as a hard drive, which allows the applications to access the client file systems.

The Remote Desktop Protocol: File System Virtual Channel Extension allows access between the server and the client file system drivers by redirecting all input/output requests and responses between the two. This protocol is also used as a base for some non-file system drivers (section 1.4).