// Microsoft Server 2003 Web Edition Review
//
// by The Goatroper
//
// http://www.oldskoolphreak.com

This article may be freely reproduced in any manner for private or nonprofit
use.


As I look back at the days and days I've spent banging away at Server 2003,
(keep in mind that this was all for you, readers), I think back to the very
beginning... opening up that shiny green and translucent CD-R case,
selecting the finest Memorex writable media, and making a silent
acknowledgement to the wonderful people at NewTech Information Systems
(NTI).

After my copy of Windows Server 2003 Web Edition was finished miraculously
duplicating itself through binary fission, I hurredly installed it onto a
pristine machine Fdisked for the occaision... and there we begin.

Installation was a snap. It took about 45 minutes, but only because I took
my time and looked at every custom setting that was offered to me, only to,
in most cases, leave everything default.  It was easy enough if you know how
to set up a generic Windows system in the first places, with only a few
unique choices and no tricky settings or special checkboxes to remember.

After restarting the machine and removing the disk, I was surprised to see a
fairly quick boot time and a pretty loading screen that held my attention
while the small bar whisked its way across the parallel.

After installing all of the hardware (clicking "next" several times and
letting the wizard find ALL of the drivers, yay) I was greeted with the
finest default UI settings ever configured on a Microsoft product. The
general appearance of S2K3 makes XP look even more like a hastily
constructed kintergartener's coloring book than it already does. It is
clean, linear, and attractively colored.

Having Web Edition, I immediately tore into the webserver setup.

I was both disappointed and pleased, and then quickly enraged at the
simplicity of the entire process. There are parts that are immediately
familiar to the Server 2k user, such as the Start menu and the My Computer
icon. Delving deeper reveals that everything (EVERYTHING) is menu-driven,
and the menus are inside-out.

In a sense, the order of doing things in Server 2000 has been reversed and
made counterintuitive in 2k3. Setting up a website was deceptively simple,
and soon proved to be an arduous challenge... probably because I was working
on the fly, and with no documentation or manual.

It started easily enough. Open up the webserver directory-like tree, and
then open up the Website branch (as opposed to the "FTP Site" or "Database"
branch) and then click the "new website" twig.

But... nothing pops up. Doubleclick. Tripleclick, just to get a response.
Try the menu route - nada. Well...

OH! The twig didn't open up automaticaly with the new website, it just
created it stealthily and I missed the little "expand" box. I opened it to
find four new websites, one of which had been renamed to "ffffg." Chalk this
one up to human error. OK, so I removed the miscreant websites and opened up
the new one.

And was greeted by another menu-driven process that let me set up a website
in about five minutes with content transported to the machine on a CDROM.

This is seriously simple, folks. I mean, I had been sitting in front of this
machine for twenty minutes (not counting install time) and I had a
functioning webserver.

There are a few small aggravations... the "insideout menus" that I've
mentioned before... It's almost impossible to explain, but if you use it
you'll know what I mean.

Beyond the fiendishly simple-to-use webserver, 2k3 has all of the bells and
whistles that an advanced 2k user has come to expect. It IS built on 2k, and
as far as stability goes it surpasses even what 2k offers.

While it seems to be and probably is a rock-solid web platform, Web Edition
is a little crippled, at least as far as other editions of Server are
concerned. It is not capable of being a domain controller though can be a
member server in an Active Directory, and only supports two proccessors and
a max of 2gb RAM. It does have support for .NET, IIS 6, and ASP.NET,and the
much-touted Shadow Copy Restore.

If you plan to buy (...you know what I mean...) a copy of Server 2k3 to use
on YOUR network server, I reccomend Standard Edition, as it has many of the
more advanced management features that W.E. lacks, and also has support for
the heavier-hitting hardware, CPU and RAM wise.

Overall, Server 2k3 surpassed my expectations. I investigated the OS
thoroughly and could find no glaring flaws or evidence of many of MS's
common follies. It strongly resembles 2k and Server2k in many aspects but
has been redressed and rebuilt in the areas that needed it. Regretably, I
didn't have time to do a hands-on test of the apparently ironclad security
of Server 2k3, but I would assume that Microsoft has fixed the foremost and
most dangerous of those in this new system.

Some of the cooler things about S2k3 are its support of Remote Assistance
and remote administration through Terminal Server (Terminal Services) and
the "improved NTFS" Shadow file systems, which seem to be a good idea if
you have the disk space to use them. Just imaging System Restore on an I.V.
drip of anabolic steroids. It stores a snapshot of the entire file system
in "shadow". Disk defragging is also more configurable, with user-definable
cluster sizes and a ChDisk that seems to work much better.

I had heard something about a Windows Media stream server being integral
with S2k3, but apparently Web Edition doesn't ship with it, so I didn't get
to see. A few other things didn't ship with W.E., but they weren't major
and didn't affect my overall impression.

My overall impression was, in fact, that Server 2k3 is a solid performer
with minimal fuss. It works well without really in-depth tweaking, will
probably purr WITH it, and I think even a retarded troglodyte high on PCP
could have this thing running box to rocks in two or three hours. Aside from
a few aggravating points and a little confusion at first, it was a pleasure
playing with Microsoft's newest offering.