I have to admit that most of the reason that I'm talking again about Windows Server 2003 and IIS tonight is that Danny has been kind enough to post about what's been going on here. It's always good to know that your content is being read by anyone at all, and Danny is more than just anyone at all—he's a guy I respect, to boot. Bonus.
So tonight I'm going to talk about all the big steps that I've gone through installing 2k3 and IIS (although, really, IIS is just a component of 2k3). Yes, I'll talk about everything. However, I'll omit the issues I had with the hardware before I ever got to the installation stage ("BIOS doesn't recognize my drives," etc.) and will stick with the software.
- It bluescreened on install. I'm 95% certain this had to do with the fact that I was using a bum CD-ROM drive. The CD drive is, in fact, in this machine specifically because it crapped out on my desktop and I didn't feel like walking all the way to my trash can to throw it away. (-1) for Lite-On.
- I, ahem, stole a DVD drive from Layla. (+1) for Layla.
- Installation went without any other problems. Completely. No confusing questions, no time wasted configuring options that I honestly don't giving a living crap out. (+1) Microsoft.
- Automatic updates worked. (+1) Microsoft, although (-1) for how long it took to install the damn packages. I downloaded 50MB worth of patches, and they took at least 10 minutes to install. Damn.
- "Manage Your Server" front-end trivial to use. This is a big bonus for me. I immediately turned on the Active Directory (+1), WINS (+1), and IIS (+1) servers with no effort in about two minutes. (+3) Microsoft.
- Firewall is disabled by default. No excuses, (-1) Microsoft.
- Turning on firewall installed connection sharing components with no obvious way to remove them. Bummer. (-1) Microsoft.
- Active Directory removed "Users and Groups" control panel. I think the idea here is that actual enterprise Active Directory servers are supposed to be standalone and shouldn't really host anything but auth information. So, it removed the Users and Groups control panel so that I couldn't configure users local to the machine but outside the domain. This is a problem in that I'd like to add myself to the "Remote Desktop Users" group so I can remote in. (-1) Microsoft.
- Once I added myself to the right group, remote desktop worked immediately. No accursed installing X. No adding the graphical version of each piece of software. No xhost—it's all done with domain auths. No bullshit decisions between a million crappy window managers. (+1) Microsoft.
- Lots of waiting to copy 600+GB of files from my old Linux server to the new machine. (-1) for 100MBit ethernet, UDMA33 buses, and 5400rpm drives.
- I Found MovableType Windows installation guide. Holy hell is this well-done. Trivial!
- MovableType doesn't support Microsoft SQL Server. (-1) MovableType for not supporting it, (-1) Microsoft for not making SQL Server (or even a Lite version) more accessible to developers.
- ActivePerl doesn't install "required" IIS extentions without problems. (-1) ActiveState, but (+1) for getting the remaining 90% of the install procedure dead-on.
- IIS lets you install those extensions by hand ridiculously easily. It took me about 30 seconds to fix it with almost no a priori knowledge of what to do. This should be like (+5) Microsoft, but I'll keep it at (+1) Microsoft just to avoid someone saying that I'm inflating how hot this actually is.
- MySQL installs brilliantly. (+3) to MySQL for finally understanding what it means to have a simple, easy-to-understand installer for your app. Simple questions like, "how will your database be used?" are much more useful that, "do you want MyISAM enabled?" And, it worked right out of the box. It almost seems ... commercial! Well played.
- Can't connect to network shares on the new server, for some reason. I don't really know why, but a few reboots later I tried it again and it seemed to work. (-1) Microsoft.
- Internet Explorer on the server is locked down tighter than a nun's [deleted]1. Good. Nobody needs a browser on a server.
- Virtual Server 2005 doesn't install on x64. VS 2005 R2 runs on Server 2k3 x64, but I can't figure out if it's been released or where I can buy it. (-1) Microsoft.
- WinFX and the SDK installed with no difficulty whatsoever. This means Web Services for free. (+1) Microsoft.
...and, that's about as far as I've gotten. Someone here must have an abacus or a calculator or a Rock-Em Sock-Em robot or something. What's the score?
Admittely, it's taken me since Sunday to get this thing to the point where it is, but nearly all of the time I've spent with the machine has been moving files from the old fileserver.
I'll leave the conclusions up to you, but I think I've come pretty damned far for only really spending 2-3 hours of my time actually setting this machine up. And in the end, my time is the only thing that I can't make more of.
1 The deleted word is actually, "habit."
That active directory thing pissed me off too. How much work would it be for MS to use their new symlink technology and provide a link to the AD user management?
The problem is that the AD management doesn't solve the problem that I've described above. Since the AD users and groups don't replace local usera and group, it's impossible to add domain groups with the same name as preëxisting local groups (such as the "Remote Desktop Users" group above) and it's impossible to add domain users to local groups. Luckily, this all worked because I could add my domain user to the domain "Enterprise Admins" group, which has access to the remoting.
Oh, and as for the symlink—while a symlink wouldn't solve this problem, a thin .cpl wrapper would. Don't expect MS to upset big customers with some novelty like this, though, unless the entire OS is getting reworked.