February 2007 - Posts
OK, after managing to convince my loving wife that I actually needed this server, deciding that I wanted a big Virtual Server server over multiple workstations, specc'ed out the server to within my budget and then awaited delivery - it has arrived!
There were a few issues though; first, delivery was not due until 19/Feb/2007 - however some fantastic storeman at Ingram Micro (without bribes mind you) has released the hardware early. Second, one of the 250GB sata hard drives is a Maxtor (the others all being seagate). Personally, I hate Maxtor drives, but appreciate that this could just be bad luck - the server has allowed me to build the RAID arrays with it, so I will continue on with a certain sense of apprehension.
The final issue was that to get this server earlier, I opted to build it myself (well, as much as you build a HP server). All I really had to do was install the RAM, the redundant power supplies, the second processor and the hard drives (which are hot swappable anyway).
The only tricky part to this was the RAM. I will not descend into the fits of swearing and hair pulling that was occurring in my office about 30 minutes ago - needless to say, it is not a simple matter of just lining things up (I should have known). I knew that you needed matched pairs, and I knew that they had to go into the same banks (Bank A presumably being Slots 1 & 2, etc). However, this is not completely accurate. Bank A is actually Slots 1 & 5; B is 2 & 6, etcetera. Lesson learned :)
Anyway, I am currently building the server as a Windows 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition 64bit server - this will then host MS Virtual Server, which inturn will host 3-5 full time servers (for testing, primarily Exchange 2007) and another 10 or so rolling servers (For SBS migrations to 2007, coexistence, 2007->2007 migrations, etc).
The specs of the system, for those interested, are as follows;
- HP ML350G5T
- 4GB RAM (which should hopefully go to 6GB in the future)
- 2x 160GB SATA drives, RAID 1 - Host OS, and master images
- 2x 250GB SATA drives, RAID 0 - Storage and rolling images (I predict right now that the Maxtor drive will last no more than 6 months)
- Redundant Fan
- Dual Processor Xeon 5120 1.86GHz
Stay tuned on my adventures in building this monster test server
Kieran
Right, so the move to Vista was relatively smooth, the only real hiccup that I had was that I could not remember my YIM password.
The thing was, I still had YIM on XP with the password saved and working.
Being the remarkably intelligent person I am, I gave Yahoo! fake details for postcode, etc., meaning that the ordinary password reset forms would not work, and also meaning that Yahoo! did not care in the slightest (the terms and conditions we all signed with them clearly states that we are obligated to give them real details).
So, what to do? I didn't want to create a new YIM account for 2 good reasons; first, I didn't want to annoy those on my YIM list, and second, my yim account is the same as my EE account.
I tried all kinds of useless asterisk removers, which kept telling me my password was "password", which it was not!
As I was about to give up and create a new account, because I was not using XP anymore, I decided to have one last go. I noticed a few times that it would log me on if I clicked a Yahoo! link from within YIM, problem is that it wouldn't get me anywhere good (such as account details/management). So, I clicked every Yahoo! link that I could, and ended up signing up for a Yahoo! 360 mail account - fine, whatever. The thing was, it asked me to CONFIRM some of my details, such as my POSTCODE, COUNTRY and AGE!
Huzzah!
I could now clearly see the Country and ZIP that I used when creating the account, and now, could successfully use the password reset page.
The moral to the story; give correct details, and/or remember your password!
Kieran
I am now fully operating on Vista, and I have to say, I am very impressed.
I can already see small things that will resolve most user issues, such as file renaming keeping the extension by default, or the security pop-up before anything important happens.
Unfortunately, it will be at least 2 more weeks before my test server gets here, so testing the whole Exchange Vista Office (EVO) combination that MS are banking on will not be possible for a while yet.
Kieran