Posted on October 15, 2007 at 1:16 pm | 
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Though it’s more than obvious, but for the sake of introduction I have to mention-Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system introduced on late April, 2007 by Microsoft as the upgrade of its predecessor Windows 2000 server. If you had experienced difficulties on earlier versions of Microsoft’s servers, this is what you have been waiting for. Windows 2003 server is way different than any of its predecessors, a lot more user-friendly.
Windows Server 2003 simplifies branch server management, improves identity and access management, reduces storage management costs, provides a rich Web platform, did I mentioned cost-effective server virtualization as well? The latest version of Windows 2003 is R2, i.e. service pack 2 (SP2), contains some major fixes that the original release candidate was missing.
But off course before everything else, you need to know the hardware requirements windows 2003 server demands, and I have to admit it is a lot higher than any of its class. Requirements vary from edition to edition (Standard, enterprise, datacentre & web edition [no R2]); for the sake of simplicity I will limit my discussion within R2 Enterprise Edition. So here we go-
Minimum requirements:
Processor- 133 MHZ minimum (maximum 8 processor, but for the multiple processor you better use something higher than Pentium II).
RAM- 128 MB (maximum 64GB for x86 type and 2TB for x64 type machine).
HDD- 3GB considering you are installing using a CD/DVD, but for network installation less than half of it is cool.
That’s about it, apart from some obvious requirements like CD/DVD drive (unless you are installing from a network location), VGA with console redirection capabilities (now a day’s all of them do, don’t they!) And finally for heaven’s sake remember that 64-bit version is compatible only with 64-bit Intel Itanium-based systems and cannot install on 32-bit systems.
Installation:
Installation of Windows 2003 is easy as pie with a little guidance (know-how-to) and a bit of common sense:). Detailed planning can make your installation of Windows Server 2003 more efficient by helping you to avoid potential problems during installation. An understanding of the configuration options will also help to ensure that you have accurately configured your system. Before installation you should check whether your system meets the minimum requirements, Check Hardware and Software Compatibility, proper file system (FAT 32 or NTFS), and Workgroup or Domain stuffs.
The installation is pretty much straight forward just like any other windows operating system, but since it’s a server operating system there will be few obvious different setup screens that you may have never seen before (or maybe you have seen). Your first concern will be, the partition of hard drive you will install Windows 2003; it must be a NTFS file system.
If you select a new partition during Setup, create and size only the partition on which you will install Windows Server 2003. After installation, use Disk Management to partition the remaining space on the hard disk. Note that Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000, and Windows NT are the only Microsoft operating systems that you can use to gain access to data on a local hard disk that is formatted with NTFS. If you plan to gain access to files that are on a local Windows Server 2003 partition with the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 operating systems, you should format the partition with a FAT or FAT32 file system.
At the middle of the installation (after the first reboot) you will be asked to provide a product key, the appropriate license type and number of purchased licenses. Needless to mention you have to choose exactly what you paid have for:).
At the far most end of the installation another section you should put some attention is “Network settings” area. For easier installation you can just choose typical settings and change it later (which ultimately you have to do, you know it!) or configure as you go by choosing custom settings. Then after few minutes your system should reboot again and you’r finished installing the Windows 2003 server. Its way easier than it sounds, the tricky parts are adding different roles to your server and configuring them properly, which I will cover some other day step by step.
6 Comments
So far,
October 16, 2007 @ 
CD
Sorry, but whats the point of this post? wk3 server has been out for donkeys, and is still too slow and resource intensive.