THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

If you are like me you might have a client that has an old server lying around because they just [or they will] be upgrading to SBS 2003 from SBS 4.5 because...well... THEY SHOULD!  Here are some ideas for that old server:

• Can you reuse it? How old is it?  Mine was 3 years old and just a month before “dropped“ a harddrive [and running out of room] and with dual processors, 2 gig of Ram was just fine for a member server, a terminal server, AND in my case, for running the “lunch order“ Live Communication Server 2003 [which I have because I had Software assurance on SBS 2000]
• Can you load Windows 2003 on it? If that was running SBS 4.0/4.5 and the server is “THAT“ old, you might not want to put it back in service and you certainly don't want Windows NT on it.  I personally would recommend Windows 2003 on any “side server“. Now keep in mind that any XP operating systems you had in place before Grey Lancaster and I went to the Windows 2003 Server launch in San Francisco [that's April of 2003 if anyone is counting], you can get grandfathered TS Cals.  Because I had Software Assurance on Windows XP, in my case it was a easy as going to my TS box, indicating that I had a Open Value/Volume licensing agreement, putting in my agreement and authorization codes, the number of XP pro licenses I had via that program and voila.  I have TS cals on the 2003 box.  For my OEM ones I'd have to figure out which ones were purchased before that date, crawl on the floor with a magnifying glass to read the Product key code off the Dell sticker and place them into the transition web site.  I'll stick with the ones from the SA plan.  Lot's cleaner.  Too many dust bunnies on the floor :-)
• Can you donate it?  But be careful here, before you donate ANY computer equipment with a harddrive to any charity [workstation/server] take that harddrive and ensure that it is totally and utterly and completely scrubbed.  You cannot merely reformat, this takes a Department of Defense level “drive wipe“ to ensure that it is cleaned.  You are literally writing “1's“ and “0's“ to the drive.  A story in the IEEE security and privacy magazine has excellent resources on scrubbing that drive.

Remember fondly SBS 4.0/4.5...but do exactly that.... remember it...don't run it anymore.  Come up to SBS 2003 where things are much better!