When it is worth setting up a business on a domain

My folks have a small business and I get lumbered with their IT and even though it's only 4 or 5 client machines I went with SBS at the time.

It did everything they needed, email, printing, file sharing etc and made it easy for me to manage everything centrally/remotely.

I probably get a call once a year to sort something out, other than that it's pretty much just ran itself with no issues. Their IT spend is virtually zero :)
 
DJMK4 said:
OK, Will try this, if it is legit, I do have an installation iso for windows server 2003 standard, but I am guessing the install is locked to the cd key.

If I can somehow install Windows server 2003 on there, can I change the product key and get it verified online?
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The key will be either for a retail, OEM or VL. With win2003, there isnt a unified install disc for all types. As its a bit of guesswork at the moment, you'll only know when you come to enter the key at install wether you've got the right install disc.

Once you get past that point, you should be able to activate it either online or via a call to the Microsoft activation line.

As mentioned though, without paper licences/CALS I wouldnt say this was a properly licenced install.

Edit: JellyBean will say if its an OEM key so that might help with determining media type.
 
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Just says that its installed from Full Package Product Media, which I believe I have a disk for, so might just give it a bash.

Asked the guy if he can try and find paperwork, but havnt mentioned anything about me extracting the key, so I could end up saying that he needs to buy something like SBS
 
DJMK4 said:
Just says that its installed from Full Package Product Media, which I believe I have a disk for, so might just give it a bash.

Asked the guy if he can try and find paperwork, but havnt mentioned anything about me extracting the key, so I could end up saying that he needs to buy something like SBS
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Sounds like a good plan.
 
OK just spoke to a few suppliers, including Dell, Dell said that Windows server 2003 SBS is end of life and I won't be able to buy a copy, and Server 2008 is not supported on this server, it would probably run, but could have issues.

Can anyone confirm or a way around, if not I will have to try and use the original 2003 install they have on there by obtaining the media for it and using the key I extracted.
 
DJMK4 said:
Intel xeon 3.0ghz, 1gb of ram upgradable, perc4e/si RAID. Just noticed the 2 x seagate 10k drives are 73gb ones. :(
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Think you'd run in to a few issues trying to put SBS08/11 on this box. It would need at least 8GB's of RAM, pref 16GB. Also, it looks like there is no perc4e/si driver support.
 
Decided its going to work out better to get rid of this and buy them a modern server with lower power consumption, bigger memory/drive space and hopefully an OS if they need it.

Will work out better in the long run I would think
 
DJMK4 said:
Decided its going to work out better to get rid of this and buy them a modern server with lower power consumption, bigger memory/drive space and hopefully an OS if they need it.

Will work out better in the long run I would think
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good call

:)

should be able to put something in for 5 x users for under a grand (hardware + OS)... I would have thought?
 
I was thinking something along the lines of this

HP ProLiant ML110 G7 Quad Core Xeon E3-1220 3.3GHz 1GB 250GB Tower Server

maybe a low specced CPU model would do them just as well?

lol

at least the fella would get something that looks vaguely like a server .... and not like a over sized money box that my N40L looks like at the mo :)
 
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