Developers, developers, developers, developers

Zach said:

Oh, I took note of the Server 2003 end-of-life date a few weeks ago from curiosity, so I had less to worry about and whatnot. The only thing my server runs is stuff for my IRC server and nothing more, really. As much as I want to load a Unix-based server OS onto it, I'm just not too familiar with Unix commands yet.

And the reason the machine runs Server 2003 is because of lower-end specs. It's got like a 2GHz Celeron single-core processor in it with 228MB internal video memory and 2GB RAM.

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There's a few Linux distros you could drop on that, but getting your IRC server reconfigured might be an issue. Since you're a student, maybe look at that HTPC Twiggy posted and get Server 2008 or Server 2012 over your school's MDSN or something. Would barely cost $200 to almost maximize that machine's capabilities, then migrate your IRC server over to it. It'd probably consume less power, too!

Although if you go the Linux route you could avoid having to worry about any potential expiring licenses you may encounter using your school's MSDN.

If you want to use Windows, I'd strongly suggest that you start with Server 2012 or 2012 R2 (the former should be able to upgrade to the latter easily without cost if 8 to 8.1 carries over).

Twiggy said:

If you want to use Windows, I'd strongly suggest that you start with Server 2012 or 2012 R2 (the former should be able to upgrade to the latter easily without cost if 8 to 8.1 carries over).

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Server 2012 has a brilliantly refined backend. Still trying to get used to the interface, though. A fair bit of what I used in the GUI for administration has been moved around. Maybe I should dive further into PowerShell. I wonder if Professor Messer has some videos on that?

donavannj said:

There's a few Linux distros you could drop on that, but getting your IRC server reconfigured might be an issue. Since you're a student, maybe look at that HTPC Twiggy posted and get Server 2008 or Server 2012 over your school's MDSN or something. Would barely cost $200 to almost maximize that machine's capabilities, then migrate your IRC server over to it. It'd probably consume less power, too!

Although if you go the Linux route you could avoid having to worry about any potential expiring licenses you may encounter using your school's MSDN.

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I haven't been told of any MSDN subscriptions from my school just yet particularly because I'm not quite taking any computer science courses yet. But I would at least hope there are options from the school to students who are prospective in the computer science degree, but haven't started classes towards the degree right now. All I'm taking now is just my core classes (math, English, science, social studies)

Zach said:

I haven't been told of any MSDN subscriptions from my school just yet particularly because I'm not quite taking any computer science courses yet. But I would at least hope there are options from the school to students who are prospective in the computer science degree, but haven't started classes towards the degree right now. All I'm taking now is just my core classes (math, English, science, social studies)

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It might not be available to you directly through your school if you haven't declared your major yet.

Team Fail said:

If you're looking for Server, or any distros of it, you can always use DreamSpark. I signed up for an account, however, my school isn't under it. However, if you can prove to them that you're currently enrolled as a student (Like a Student ID or a class schedule), you can still get in (I used a student ID and I got access). I have access to Server 2012 myself for no cost at all, as well as the entire VS 2013 Professional line.

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That's something I'll have to jot down in case I'm ever a student anywhere again.

donavannj said:

It might not be available to you directly through your school if you haven't declared your major yet.

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Oh my major is decided alright. I guess it just depends on the school though because I'm not taking any CS courses yet, but my academic plan is for an AA in computer science.

I've heard of DreamSpark. I did a google search for my college and MSDN, and DreamSpark came up.

Well, here's some good news: I did an OS repair from the Server 2003 install CD, and I got it to log me in! yay!

But I'm still going to run that antimalware CD just to make sure.

Here's a question: Why aren't you running a Linux distro in the first place? They're thousands of times more malleable than WS, are most often open-source, and don't rely on below-the-line automated online tech support for problem solving.

Well over half the stuff written for Red Hat and Debian distributions would require years of overhaul to even begin to run on Windows. Also, things such as system configurations and executables aren't vulnerable to exploitation via file extensions like in Windows, plus you don't have to screw with a GUI to get things done. The most common commands you'll need are rpm and wget; everything to do with file management can be done via SFTP in WinSCP (including compression and extraction of tarballs via extended SSH).

®ock§mashGod said:

Here's a question: Why aren't you running a Linux distro in the first place? They're thousands of times more malleable than WS, are most often open-source, and don't rely on below-the-line automated online tech support for problem solving.

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I have more experience working with Windows than I do Linux, and it's a personal preference, really. I don't care much for Microsoft's tech support, but more often than whatnot, I do find help for anything.

Zach said:

I have more experience working with Windows than I do Linux, and it's a personal preference, really. I don't care much for Microsoft's tech support, but more often than whatnot, I do find help for anything.

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Is it a remote server, or do you physically own it? Just bear in mind that running on a residential ISP is asking for trouble, as a lot US internet companies are well within their rights to terminate your contract if they (A) find you running a commercial server on their residential line, or (B) find you to be a nuisance of bandwith. Besides, I'm fairly certain residential bandwidth caps aren't designed to handle transfer of such a caliber.


Nonetheless, I don't think it'd matter much if your server doesn't get hardly any traffic. If you magically "hit it big", I'd suggest purchasing a WS2012 VPS from a professional datacenter.

For now, it's physically owned by me. As soon as I find a job and calculate how much money I make, I do plan on getting a VPS, and it may actually be Linux-based. I do know basic SSH commands such as how to start programs and such, but I need to learn on how to compile and install as well.

Also, I'm well-aware of servers on a residential connection. However, Verizon (my ISP) blocks ports that they do not want residential connections using. 80 and 25 are blocked ports, so I don't have to worry about that.

And data cap? What's that? :p But in all seriousness, Verizon is one of the few ISPs that does not cap data for anyone.

Let's just say that I prefer setting up a Windows server if it means having it easy to set up and maintain for a Windows nerd like me, even with the relative cost. I don't want to set up a *nix box judging from my past experience...

As for support, besides non-automated phone support, you have also got a whole lot of self-help and community support options with Windows products, and that's not factoring in that it is Windows. Compatibility, anyone?

Something tells me that when I get a job, I might end up buying a small HTPC box and designate it as the home server.

So I'm not sure if I am doing something wrong, or if this is something on Microsoft's part, but whenever I reloaded Server 2003 onto my server, clicking the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop just caused a new shortcut to IE to appear on the desktop. And also, when I upgraded to SP2, I tried to get in as many updates as possible with no luck at all, meaning in Internet Explorer, manually updating stalled and svchost.exe was running at 100 CPU. This same thing happened when I did a clean install on the server last year with no files on the partition at the time of the install, so is this something wrong on Microsoft's part or could it be the hard drive aging?

Zach said:

So I'm not sure if I am doing something wrong, or if this is something on Microsoft's part, but whenever I reloaded Server 2003 onto my server, clicking the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop just caused a new shortcut to IE to appear on the desktop. And also, when I upgraded to SP2, I tried to get in as many updates as possible with no luck at all, meaning in Internet Explorer, manually updating stalled and svchost.exe was running at 100 CPU. This same thing happened when I did a clean install on the server last year with no files on the partition at the time of the install, so is this something wrong on Microsoft's part or could it be the hard drive aging?

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Right click the first Internet Explorer icon and check its properties. Notice anything unusual?

As for the 100% part, it seems like the Windows XP SVCHOST bug also affects Server 2003. Try to wait it out, and update as much as possible. When everything is updated, it should be peachy again. (They culled the update lists a lot - you'd want to be on IE8 if you're not already on that on Server 2003.)

It's probably a way better idea to migrate to Server 2012, though.

The properties do come up when I right-click in IE. However, when I upgraded to IE7, it just flat out broke but IE8 fixed it. Then yesterday I had to do yet another restoration down to SP1 because I got this message after some more updates:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
Please reinstall a copy of the above file

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All methods I tried didn't fix it.

Try just performing a clean install, then don't do anything but install drivers and Windows updates until there's nothing left.

Had fun today, somehow my sim card locked itself up, and I had to do a contact hunt to find all my lost numbers, buy a new sim, pay for the number transfer, oh the joys of having a touch screen! Apparently I entered the puk too many times, probably in the morning when I was drowsy. >_>

All in all though, I'm enjoying my new go launcher theme, and the widgets are a fun sidetrack.

This is why when it comes to locks, I use the lock provided by the OS, and not anything involving the SIM - if I ever lose my SIM card, I would probably just shrug, track, lock, and make a police report.

Lock was just a normal pattern lock, no way in hell would I risk using a pin lock every time either. This time alone was enough of a scare.

I never realized that SIM cards had locks on them o.o I thought phone locks this whole time were just done by the operating system and the operating system only