SMS: Explanations of Remote Control Screen Acceleration

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Video Acceleration is determined by two items: 1) whether the video card is "resolved" to be similar enough to be accelerated by a driver in the "Video Accelerator" and 2) Video acceleration is turned ON. The list of video cards and drivers that can be accelerated is located on the Systems Management Server primary site under the following tree structure:

1. Start Systems Management Server Administrator Console.
2. In the Administrator UI, locate SITES, select your site site_code:site_name, click Site Settings, and then click Client Agents.
3. Right-click Remote Control Client Configuration in the Results pane.
4. Click Properties on the shortcut menu.
5. Click the Advanced tab and select Install accelerated transfer on Windows NT clients.
6. Click Apply and then click OK.

The Advanced tab also contains the list of video cards that can be accelerated. You can theoretically add to this list. Deleting items on this list removes them from video cards that will be accelerated -- even if acceleration is enabled globally.

Acceleration on computers running Windows NT is accomplished with either the Idisntkm.sys (for Windows NT 4.0) or Idisnt.sys (for Windows 3.51). The appropriate driver for the operating system is loaded into the appropriate Winroot\System32 directory (Winroot\System32\Drivers for Windows NT 4.0) and installed as a service to manage video acceleration during a Remote Control session. At no other time is the acceleration a factor in the Windows NT computer. Although the driver is loaded and running, it is not "used" except during an accelerated Remote Control session.

The actual "evaluation" process to determine whether a client's video card can be accelerated happens at the time Remote Control is installed to the client. To see if acceleration is enabled on a particular client, check the registry key below.

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

1. Using either Regedt32.exe or Regedit.exe, locate the following key:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Hardware\Devicemap\Video
   						

2. Check each of the "\Device\Video0" keys (note that there may be one or two of these) and take note of the Services\video driver\Device0 key on each.
3. Using the previous key(s) as pointers, now go to the following key:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\<key value from Step 2 above>\Device0
   						

4. Make sure the InstalledDisplayDrivers key is set to either an entry by itself (as in "VGA") or multiple entries separated by a single space (as in "idisnt vga idisnt vga256").

Alternatively, if it is present and visible on the client's desktop, double-click the Remote Control indicator icon to get the status display window. If acceleration is loaded, the Remote Control status window will show that acceleration is loaded in the appropriate status line.