Distilling down to bare minimums, Terminal Services can be broken down into two halves:
First, the "sessioning" half, which is the ability of Microsoft Windows to simultaneously host multiple user sessions on the same server. Each user session is administratively separate from others, with its own identified processes, threads, and user profiles. Any application installed to a server can be used by a session, with the processes needed by that application invoked as necessary by the session.
You can see limited evidence of this in the Remote Desktop functionality used to administratively connect to servers and workstations. It is, however, important to note that there are a few specific differences between how sessioning works in Terminal Services as opposed to what is done with Remote Desktop. For example, with Terminal Services there is a layer of abstraction created between a user's remote session and the actual resources on the server itself. That layer of abstraction redirects file and registry pointers to prevent conflict as numerous users leverage the same server. With Remote Desktop there no such redirection occurs, which is one of the reasons why Remote Desktop connections are limited in number.
To learn more and to read the entire article at its source, please refer to the following page, Terminal Services Part 2: Sessioning and the RDP Protocol - Concentrated Technology
Article Tags