I'm building a new WS 2012 R2 Essentials server.

I have several remote employees that will need to connect to the server and access files.

When they are in the office they simply connect to the server, through File Explorer, find files from the server, open then and edit in Word, or Excel, or whatever.  When they finish they simply click "save" and the file is obviously saved on the server. I'd like to figure out a way for my remote employees to use our server the same way. 

I'd prefer to not make remote employees have to download a file, work on it, save it, then re-upload it to the server.  We can quickly get files out of sync and various revisions flying around. 

Is there a way to do what I want, that is have remote clients open documents in word, or whatever directly from the server, then when they save edits, have that file also on the server??

Thank you in advance for all replies!

-- Cain

Hi Cain:

With Essentials the users can connect to their desktops using RWA, or you need to deploy a Remote Desktop Services (RDS) fka Terminal Server.  With Essentials you setup Remote Web Access, the users connect to the built in RWA web site, login with secure credentials and connect to their desktop or to the RDS server.  No data leaves the LAN and the users cannot tell they are not connected to or working on an individual desktop.

If there are not enough desktops to go around, or if the user all have notebooks that the travel with, I do this with ONE server box, standard server as hyper visor and two VMs.  One has the Essentials Role, the other RDS.  All for the cost of ONE physical box, One copy of Server Standard, a Server CAL for each user, and a RDS license for each user who access the RDS server.

Thank you for the reply Larry. 

I'm CLEARLY a neophyte when it comes to server operating systems, and particularly when it comes to remote access, and deciding on the best way to make a seamless experience for my users.

Can you perhaps point me to some documentation that would tell me the pros and cons of VPN remote, vs Remote Web Access, Work Folders, Remote Desktop, etc.  There are clearly many ways to handle remote clients.

I only have about 5 users at most and I'd like for them to simply see a directory tree in File Explorer, which is how they access the server when they are on our LAN.   I have no idea how to accomplish this, and I assume it is possible. 

Once again, thank you, and please suggest something I can read or watch to better understand the pros and cons of various remote access options for WS 2012 R2.

Take care!

I understand your frustration, but if you use remote desktop, make sure that you have your employees listed in Active directory and give them the necessary permissions. After that you can map the drive on your server with the applications your people will need, so it looks like that drive is on their system when they log on via the remote desktop manager.

I don't know if that helps, but it's worth a shot.

BTW, I learn the hard way to reboot things, including the router and WSOS, just to be safe.

Explaining all the steps and the use of RWA here is beyond the scope of this forum. There are hundreds of web sites and You Tube videos and the like on the internet for you to research the requirements and steps required.

Try searching the below, for example, in your favorite internet search engine.  I use Bing:

windows server essentials Remote web access