The function of the owners pane is to display a set of eligible owners.

Owners are things which may receive object assignments and other owner-specific settings (e.g. lockdown mode, shell preference).

In the server-based (or thin client) computing paradigm, there are three primary parties – the server computer, the client computer, and the user.  The Simplify Suite designates all three parties as owners.  The definition of owner is further extended to include logical “parents” of these entities – Active Directory domains, organizational units (OUs), user groups, etc.

The owners pane is composed of an owners toolbar and an owners tree.  Owners are organized in the tree in a hierarchical fashion – according to the ancestor/descendent relationship mentioned above.  Active Directory domains occupy the highest level of the owners tree – with computers, user groups, and users at the very bottom level.  OUs and containers are found in the middle.

Population of the owners tree is accomplished by examination and analysis of the host computer’s Active Directory environment.  This examination and analysis occurs every time the Simplify Console application is executed.  The creation of custom owners is also supported <expand>.

The top-level sort order of the owners tree is as follows:

• Primary domain (domain of the host computer)

• Trusted domains (0 or more)

• Host computer – local users and user groups appear under this owner

• Custom computer owners – user may specify computers by (DSN) name or IP address.  IP address ranges are also supported.

The hierarchical structure of the owners tree is not simply an organizational mechanism, it serves a practical purpose.  Although domains, OUs, and containers are not primary parties in a thin client session, they can be assigned objects just the same.  These assignments are then inherited by descendant owners.  In this manner, boilerplate configuration can be made at the domain or OU level and fine-tuned at a lower level.

The effective configuration for a given Terminal Services session is a mixture of the configurations for all three owner parties.  In general, when configuration conflicts arise between parties, the most restrictive setting takes precedence.