Single server solution for RDS / TS / RDP using Windows Server 2012 R2

Question

Planning on setting up a small single server and  need this functionality:
* 3 local users runnnig Windows 7 Home Premium needs to access files on the server
* The same 3 users should also be able to connect from home (PC, Mac, iPhone) and run an application on the server. (Session-Based Remote Desktop).
We want to use Windows Server 2012, and found out that Essentials does not support RDP, so that leaves Foundation and Standard versions.
However, I also found out that in WS 2012 the RDP can not be on the same server as the Domain Controller, and we therefor needs to run 2 server instances on our hardware. I think this starts to look way to complicated for what we want to do, but found out
that WS 2012 R2 allows a single server to run RDP (See TechNet article 2833839).
So we will go for Windows Server 2012 R2, either Foundation or Standard to set up our RDP.
So now the question: Will that solution work with our local machines running Windows 7 Home Premium, as they cannot connect to a domain? Can we set up some kind of simple file share or Workgroup to acces files locally while still keeping the RDP
functionality on the server?
And, will WS 2012 Foundation R2 do this as well as WS 2012 Standard R2?
(I have been asking several locat MS representatives to find a solution to our needs, but no one seems to know how this works....of cause we could just get 2 WS 2012 Standard server instances, run one as DC and on as RDCB and upgrade all our clients to Win
7 Pro, but we would like a solution with minimal investment in time and money)
Rgds
Petter

Answer 1

Hi Ryan, 
and thanks for the answer! I do not know how to do "multiple quote" in this forum so I do it this way:
"have you considered virtualisation, as you can run multiple virtual machines under one licence. I think this would be the cheapest and most efficient use of your money. Upgrading your clients to Windows 7 pro would allow you to have domain control
Single Sign On SSO. "
This is the "official" solution I think: Upgrade all clients to Win 7 Pro and run two instances of Win Server 2012 Standard on the server.
However, I was hoping to get away with something a bit more Quick & Dirty.....;-) We do not have big security issues and will have a good backup system, and I think for 3 users only, it will be more work trying to centralise administration like updating,
backups etc, than to just go to each machine and do what is needed. 
We are good with computers/Windows but have no Server experience. A server guy will help us get started, but I dont want him around after that, so it must be a very simple solution.
Also, installing 2 instances of WS 2012 and upgrading all 3 clients to Win Pro, and then installing all software and settings on the clients into the new domain user accounts on these clients is quite a lot of work. So I was hoping to keep only existing local
users on the client machines and only have some kind of file share thing going on with the server disks that we need to access. So perhaps use a Workgroup instead of a domain, if that works with the RDS setup?
"Option 1
2 virtual machines 1x DC and 1x RDS server."
So, if we set up RDS this way (so we can log in remote and run our application session-based on the server), can we keep the local clients running Windows Home Premium using our current local user logins (ie no domain user accounts created on the client machines,
as this is impossible in Home versions) and still access the server disks somehow, or is it impossible? 
Another question is if it is stupid/a really bad solution...but I still want to know if it is possible....;-)
"Option 2 
2 virtual machines 1x DC and 1x RDS server.
You can configure your RDS solution as a domain joined platform and will still be able to access resources from the local device as you can map local drives to the session host. http://www.serverintellect.com/support/techfaq/drive-rdp/
Your users would have two sets of credentials, one for the local client and one for the domain."
I do not want to access files over VPN or RDP, we only want to run an application on the server from remote (Session-Based Remote Desktop). However when we use the local clients we want to access files on the server, and then we access huge image and film files
on fast RAID drives, so local network speed must be top speed. Also if possible we would like to not upgrade to Win Pro, and then joining a domain is not possible.
"Option 3
1x Server
The second option would be to manually deploy the session host role and licencing role to a work group server. This would limit access to RDP only and you would loose web access functionality."
I think this is what I was hoping for. It seems that the new R2 release of WS 2012 allows you to rund RDP and Domain Controller roles on the SAME instance of the server. That sounds nice, it limits what we need to keep track on and minimises the load on the
server that needs to act as a very fast file server locally.
However, can we do this and still keep file acces with only Windows Home (no domain) in the local clients (same question as above under "Option 1")?
Rgds
Petter