The DP4 Terminal Server allows you to avoid installing more than than a very few DP4 components, (collectively named the DP4 Thin Client), on client machines. Rather than running various programs on the client which access a database via a network server, you run one user interface program which provides the user interface for applications running on the server. You can find background information on the DP4 Terminal Server in the description of the DP4 Thin Client in the Introduction to DP4.
The DP4 Thin Client is supplied as the minimal set of DP4 components needed on the client together with an install program. If you only want to run DP4 like this is all you need to install. You will probably want to customise the installation by pre-editing the DP4 configuration file with any settings you need. For Win32 clients the ideal way to do this is by adding entries to the tscw32.inf file, or running a second .inf file. If your application server is not called dp4server or accessible under that name, you at least need to change the entries in the .inf file which specify server names.
You may also want to add an OSDI to the installation, if you want to be able to access POS or similar devices attached to the client.
A DP4 Thin Client Client installation is not incompatible with a client only network installation, or a local resilience configuration, or a named connection configuration so you can run a mix of applications. For example you might use a local resilience configuration with a few key applications installed on the client, and arrange to run other applications via the Terminal Server. DP4 Thin Client is incompatible with a Multiple Resilience Configuration - if a machine is running AUXDISTR it will not be able to run programs on other machines using the DP4 Thin Client.
Instructions for loading machines so they can to act either as Application Servers, or DP4 thin clients can be found here.
If both the application server and the client are running Win32 operating systems bitmaps and icons built into the application will be correctly displayed on the client. On Win32 clients bitmaps and icons stored on the server can also be displayed regardless of the server operating system. If filenames specified in maps include a path this must be relative to the server, not the client. In each case the necessary files are transferred across the network once and are held in a cache similar to that used by Web Browsers for web pages. If files are updated on the server the new version will automatically be used next time the file is accessed.