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The problem with going for a simple shell is that you begin to lose three important facilities.
The first is the ability to lock down the client and deter tampering. The second is the ability to remotely manage the client. Finally, there is the support of your hardware - if you have old kit you probably have a good mix of things like video and network cards which you may have trouble supporting if you go with something which is not mainstream.
These may not be issues for you but you need to consider them.
If you are running Metaframe and have someone with Unix experience you could look at running the ICA client under Linux. This would give you additional options for removing the hard drive and running the OS from CD, or from network using BOOTP.
However, if you are a Windows-only shop you would be better off raising the version of Windows to the most recent that the PCs will run with. You should be able to get away with minimum spec, as you will be running minimal applications locally.
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