Wow that's quite an upgrade Jim. I use Server 2003 in a small business environment. It is one I "made" piece by piece from scratch about a year and a half ago. Click here to see a picture of it.
But honestly, if I had it to do over again I would just use XP Professional as the server. Unless it is a big, big company with lots of users which we are not.
2003 is too proprietary. For example some simple applications will not work on it. Software makers when writing their products do not think in terms of Server 2003 necessarily. No market for it. Same with hardware. For example ATI said their graphics cards are not supported on Server 2003. (Yet they work if you configure it correctly).
You are limited, and have to do a lot of configuring of things to get it to work correctly as XP does right out of the box.
But honestly, if I had it to do over again I would just use XP Professional as the server. Unless it is a big, big company with lots of users which we are not.
It was more of a case of having Server 2003. I did the Microsoft Partners deal and got a Server 2003 license with it along with 10 Win XP licenses. If I didn't use it, I'd have to use one of the XP licenses. In any case, I don't need any other aps on the server other than the pre-installed Microsoft stuff so it's not an issue. Besides, I think, long-term I'll grow into all the neat Active Directory stuff. Server 2003 also has built-in raid and shadow copy.
I set up a second server with 2 hot-swap harddrive bays, each with a 300 gigabyte drive in a mirrored raid configuration. The second server runs a task just before midnight that creates a folder on the mirrored drive and copies over the main server to it. I come in in the morning, break the mirror, pull the drive out and put it in my car, stick in yesterday's drive and resync the mirror, all while the server is running. The closest thing to painless backup, plus a daily history for about 80 days. If you're interested in the tricks it took to get it to work, let me know.
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igotout
Wow that's quite an upgrade Jim. I use Server 2003 in a small business environment. It is one I "made" piece by piece from scratch about a year and a half ago. Click here to see a picture of it.
Server 2003 Custom Made Computer
But honestly, if I had it to do over again I would just use XP Professional as the server. Unless it is a big, big company with lots of users which we are not.
2003 is too proprietary. For example some simple applications will not work on it. Software makers when writing their products do not think in terms of Server 2003 necessarily. No market for it. Same with hardware. For example ATI said their graphics cards are not supported on Server 2003. (Yet they work if you configure it correctly).
You are limited, and have to do a lot of configuring of things to get it to work correctly as XP does right out of the box.
Here is an invaluable article for you. Have fun.
http://www.msfn.org/win2k3/
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pawtucket
John,
You are such a geek!!! (I am too) Most show off pics of their family, you have an album of your favorite computers.
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Jim
It was more of a case of having Server 2003. I did the Microsoft Partners deal and got a Server 2003 license with it along with 10 Win XP licenses. If I didn't use it, I'd have to use one of the XP licenses. In any case, I don't need any other aps on the server other than the pre-installed Microsoft stuff so it's not an issue. Besides, I think, long-term I'll grow into all the neat Active Directory stuff. Server 2003 also has built-in raid and shadow copy.
I set up a second server with 2 hot-swap harddrive bays, each with a 300 gigabyte drive in a mirrored raid configuration. The second server runs a task just before midnight that creates a folder on the mirrored drive and copies over the main server to it. I come in in the morning, break the mirror, pull the drive out and put it in my car, stick in yesterday's drive and resync the mirror, all while the server is running. The closest thing to painless backup, plus a daily history for about 80 days. If you're interested in the tricks it took to get it to work, let me know.
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Tom Strange
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