JTB2468

We don't really need any of the features SBS has. We do have some applications that have to run on a Windows based system. The network license manager for Autodesk software, accounting software, etc. But these things could easily run from inside a VM. Windows is the only thing that any of the IT consultants around here know anything about. Thanks for the advice, hopefully we'll get something worked out.

I can definitely understand that. We have about 30 employees here but I'm the full time in house IT staff and I have experience with a lot of areas of computing, especially Linux so we have that going I suppose. We have such a limited IT budget that it makes it very hard for me to run MS products here. The support fees are insane and the licensing is just so expensive. I really need to save my budget for the CAD software and for hardware upgrades.

It is true that it's easier to setup, but from my experience linux requires almost no maintenance whereas we are constantly doing maintenance on our Windows systems. Nice avatar btw.

Well that just sucks. Thanks for the reply. One more reason I really don't like MS products...

Hi, after looking for a good MS forum for a while this one looks like it will be the best one. Hopefully someone can help me with this issue. Where I work we have 1 licensed copy of SBS 2003 R2 installed on our domain server. On that server I was hoping to install a virtual machine of the same OS configured exactly the same way to test software, Windows Udpates, etc. in (about 2 weeks ago some Windows Updates FUBARed our server and we had to format/reinstall). Anyway, I'm using VirtualBox and installed SBS 2003 R2 using the same key that it is installed on the physical server with. When the activation wizard comes up it says it can't contact the licensing server as usual so I called and got the inhumanly long key but it says invalid. I would think that it is perfectly fine to run the same OS on the same computer twice...is this not the case? Basically, do I have to buy another copy of SBS 2003 R2 to run on my virtual machine? Thanks.