Will Vista Business work with SBS 2003?

It's not as daft a question as you may think - as I'm a seasoned SBS'er I know only too well that joining a computer to a SBS domain the 'correct' way involves using a wizard which at the time of writing does not oficially support Vista.

Now, there are workarounds to join Vista clients manually to a SBS domain, and there is a hotfix/service pack nearly ready to get the wizard working properly with Vista. Things get really interesting if you're using Premium with ISA 2004 (please say not 2000?!) - think I saw that an update rollup package for SBS 2003 Premium with ISA 2004 had been released only yesterday to enable domain cient support of Vista, and there's an updated ISA Firewall Client for Vista too.

My advice would be to get a decent RSS Reader - such as FeedReader or GreatNews and then get over to 1) The Microsoft website & subscribe to the feeds for all the component parts of SBS 2003 (SBS, Windows Server, Exchange, ISA, SQL etc), 2) The MVP's (Most Valuable Professional) websites and subscribe to their RSS feeds - www.sbsdiva.com is a good start - as they offer a great deal of 'real world' experience of SBS, and 3) Peruse the 'microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs' newsgroup - Google Groups is a good online service if you don't have a newsreader.

If all else fails I can let you have my OPML file with all the SBS RSS feeds that I can find.

Hope that helps mate.
 
I would find it hard to believe that they haven't updated all that already seeing as vista has been available to businesses since last year?
 
You may find it hard to believe but it is the truth:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926505/en-us

Microsoft is currently working on an update for the Windows SBS client deployment tools to support Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office program. This update is scheduled to be available on the Microsoft Update Web site and in the Microsoft Download Center at the end of January 2007.

Until the update is released, you must manually join Windows Vista-based computers to a Windows SBS network. To do this, follow these steps.
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Like I said, SBS != Standard Server, the wizards don't yet work for Vista
 
ruffneck said:
Do you use SBS? or are you comparing Server 2003 to SBS?
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Exactly! The mantra from any SBS MVP is 'Use the Wizards, Use the Wizards, Use the Wizards' - you can VERY quickly run in to trouble if you don't use them (presumably out of some sort of techno-snobbery?!) to configure the main parts of SBS. By all means use the 'full fat' configuration tools available for more specific things, but the Wizards are a vital part of SBS.
 
JonnyT said:
Exactly! The mantra from any SBS MVP is 'Use the Wizards, Use the Wizards, Use the Wizards' - you can VERY quickly run in to trouble if you don't use them (presumably out of some sort of techno-snobbery?!) to configure the main parts of SBS. By all means use the 'full fat' configuration tools available for more specific things, but the Wizards are a vital part of SBS.
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I couldn't agree more!
Where I work as the IT Manager we have a "Full" Active Directory network.
Nothing is SBS based at all, so of course we use the various tools to manage everything.
Wizards are rarely used etc.

Just recently I had to setup a satellite office and they were going to be initially using a seperate SBS based setup.
It had been a while since I'd used SBS but I really thought that as I knew my way around a full AD Domain I really didn't need to bother myself with SBS Wizards.
However it isn't a case of knowing what you are doing or knowing your way around, it is more the case of what SBS is expecting.
SBS is designed to make use of Wizards at every opportunity and if you stick with them wherever possible it just means things rarely go wrong.
I actually spent an extra day setting up this site because at the end of day one I decided to totally scrap what I'd done and start again - this time using the wizards.
End result - 100% stable system.
 
stoofa said:
I couldn't agree more!
Where I work as the IT Manager we have a "Full" Active Directory network.
Nothing is SBS based at all, so of course we use the various tools to manage everything.
Wizards are rarely used etc.

Just recently I had to setup a satellite office and they were going to be initially using a seperate SBS based setup.
It had been a while since I'd used SBS but I really thought that as I knew my way around a full AD Domain I really didn't need to bother myself with SBS Wizards.
However it isn't a case of knowing what you are doing or knowing your way around, it is more the case of what SBS is expecting.
SBS is designed to make use of Wizards at every opportunity and if you stick with them wherever possible it just means things rarely go wrong.
I actually spent an extra day setting up this site because at the end of day one I decided to totally scrap what I'd done and start again - this time using the wizards.
End result - 100% stable system.
Click to expand...

I learnt the hard way like you, using my server knowledge to setup SBS without wizards, and even thou everything was set correctly it just wasn't right. started again with the wizards everything was humpty doody
 
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