So this week has been an interesting week for me from an install standpoint. I got to load up from scratch my first Windows Server 2008 machine, and let me say that I am actually impressed.

The machine is going to a remote office, and needed to be laoded upto be a DC and file/print server on a Windows 2003 SP1 network, which I thought would make life interesting. Usually you find all sorts of odd things when integrating different Server OSes. Not as much in this case.

Active Directory was going to be my biggest worry, yet once I ran the adprep off the 2008 disk on the 2003 DC, everything jsut slipped right into place. The wizards that 2008 uses are fairly simple and straight forward, and did a great job of promoting the server.

The other item of big importance was DFSR for file replication and again, the install and setup of it was amazingly simple.

Yes, 2008 uses that darn Vista GUI, and yes I still don’t like how exploring files and folders (especially the network) is set up with it, its a small, superficial complaint to the ease of 2008. After install I found that 2008 booted faster than 2003, and was just as capable of a server OS. The other complaint I have about it is that it is too simple. I did not see a chance to customize my install initially, which I would like to have the option of.

The whole install and configuration took me 1 day and the file data replicated overnight easily, bringing all the NTFS security information with it.

Honestly, as much as I think Microsoft gets a lot wrong, so far I would say the did something right with server 2008.

Keep watching as my test server finally came in and I am going to be doing a review of SBS2008, installing from scratch soon.