Re: Upgrading from SBS2003 Evaluation Kit to the Real Thing

This company is a sign shop so the files are mostly graphics files. There is
no exchange mail involved. He is simply using SBS2003 for file serving. I had
to scratch my head and wonder why he chose to do that when he could have used
a Windows XP computer with mirrored hard drives to achieve a similar effect
without the learning curve. I am going to recommend that he start over again.
His server seems to be working just fine but at some point it developed a
major bottleneck that is difficult if not impossible to track down.

Thanks again for your help. This is one of those jobs that ends up being a
loser because no solution can lead to a reasonable bill. When a client pays
$600 for software and then has to pay $1200 to install it, something has to
give and it usually means that the person installing it loses time and money.
--
Computerfriend
artondisk.com


"Steve" wrote:

OK now I understand the sequence of events. Since you're dealing with an
install by someone else which may be suspect I'd agree that another fresh
reinstall may be best if the client is willing to pay for that. How much
data and Exchange mail etc. is involved?

"Computerfriend" <computerfriend@xxxxxxxxxxxx(donotspam)> wrote in message
news:AAD68AA3-C60F-47C9-BF17-CE34FF9B8021@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
What happened here evidently is that the customer's sysadmin first
installed
the Trial copy of SBS2003 standard edition. Then, the trial copy expired.
The
customer called the sysadmin and told him about this and said he was ready
to
buy the real deal. The system administrator came over and picked up the
server, took it to his place of business and evidently nuked the server,
installed SBS2003 which had now been purchased from a local Office Depot
store, and came back and told the customer that he had to start over from
scratch.
When the customer saw that #1: the server had been rebuilt from scratch
and
thus had a big labor charge attached, and #2: the server now runs very
slowly
and has major problems, he fired the system administrator and looked me up
since I am a local Small Business Specialist.
Although I am familiar with SBS2003 and use it, I cannot figure out what
must have gone wrong during the new install process that would lead to
slow
performance and glitches in recognizing shared printers on such a small
network. So I am thinking at this point that since the whole process has
been
out of control, it might be easiest to back up the customer's data and
start
over again.

Sorry that I couldn't have made this clearer at the start.
Thanks!
--
Computerfriend
artondisk.com


"Steve" wrote:

I thought you said the 180 day trial had been exceeded so that the server
was no longer functional anyway? If so you'll be installing fresh
regardless? What do you mean "before the re-install of SBS 2003..."?

"Computerfriend" <computerfriend@xxxxxxxxxxxx(donotspam)> wrote in
message
news:C61D73B7-2291-4525-9CF3-12617C826C5A@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thank you all for your help. This answers the question very well. I
will
get
in touch with the client and let him know.

There is one more issue and it is really the reason that the admin got
fired-- the client has three computers hooked up to SBS2003 (the newly
activated version). When the three computers were added, everything
went
well
until each user tried to access their documents on the server. At that
point,
the server pauses a good minute or longer before opening the folder to
allow
access.

This is unusual because before the re-install of SBS2003, the user
folders
would open almost immediately so employees could get to work. Now there
is
this very long lag time. The permissions are set correctly for each
user
and
folder. We removed one or more computers and re-added them, restarted
both
the server and the clents, but there is still this very long lag time.

No error messages show up to tell us why this crippling event is
happening.
Has anyone experienced such a problem? All clent computers are running
Windows XP Pro. One other issue is that one of the computers has a
printer
attached to it that it is sharing but that printer won't show up
anywhere
in
the network.

I'm about to tell my customer to start this whole thing over again and
re-install SBS2003 from scratch since the glitch is so hard to track
down.

Thanks for all your help!
--
Computerfriend
artondisk.com


"Steve" wrote:

During the active 180 day trial period it can be upgraded. After that
I
think you have to install from scratch.

"Computerfriend" <computerfriend@xxxxxxxxxxxx(donotspam)> wrote in
message
news:16BC3CAE-679C-40CA-BA11-88B7F5162432@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hello,
I am a MS Small Business Specialist. Recently a customer of mine
called
saying that he was firing his administrator because he had used the
SBS2003
Evaluation Kit and his server was running perfectly. Then, when his
trial
period ran out, his administrator told him that the entire server
would
have
to be redone because there was no "activation" system in place to
just
purchase SBS2003 and upgrade the Evalution Kit to a full blown
version
of
SBS2003 Standard Edition (which was what he was evaluating).

Is this true? Is it not possible to get a network running on an
evaluation
solution and then "go live" without starting over again?

Any help you can give in this matter will be appreciated.
--
Computerfriend
artondisk.com









.

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