Back in March I wrote about Installing Windows 2008, my experience with it. I finally had a chance to do some more in-depth test driving.
The login is cool, it has accessibility for the first time (text to speech, magnify, on screen keyboard). I tried out the on-screen keyboard because I’ve needed that before when one of my colleagues decides to unplug the keyboard. The only way for Windows Server 2003 to recognize the keyboard would be to reboot (not an option most times). It worked well and stays up for the rest of your session unless you close it.
Next I tried to experiment some more by joining it to a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory domain, no problems there. I know I could have gotten some more benefits by making my 2008 server the DC but I actually want to install Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. There’s a lot of improvements with IIS that I really want to test out!
One thing I noticed that I don’t particularly like is that a lot of install happen in the background. Usually its a software update or device driver and I don’t mind that at all for my desktops. But when it comes to my servers I really need to know everything that’s happening, all the changes and for the most part I want to document them.
The Initial Configuration Tasks window is the first thing you see. Its organized and I think its more efficient than doing these tasks during install. I chose to add a role for Web Server (to install IIS). The wizard driven interface was easy and faster. The best part was that instead of complaining about missing components and failing, it gave a warning to allow you to confirm you want to install the needed prerequisites – very nice!
That’s it for now, I need to look at some of the new terminology in 2008 (Features?!) And eventually get around to installing MOSS. Should be interesting…