nmX.Memnoch

Agreed.

Get a real hardware router. Since he already has the T1 up and running he may already have one.

Have you tried going directly to the Microsoft Update site? If you require the BITS and Windows Installer updates KAndle mentioned you can only get them by going directly to the Microsoft Update site (or downloading them from MS Downloads...MS Update is quicker/easier).

Right, they have to be the same model and speed. It's generally recommended that they also be the same stepping (which is why most people recommend that you go ahead and purchase them both at the same time), but this isn't an absolute necessity. As long as they are the same model and speed you should be fine. Example: You can't mix a Nocona based 3.2GHz Xeon with an Irwindale based 3.2GHz Xeon. Also, if you decide to go with that board (or any newer Dual CPU setup) be sure to check if you need an Extended ATX case. That particular board will...and for that I'd recommend the Coolermaster Stacker 810. I personally have a Thermaltake XASER Armor and while it's a nice case there are a few things that drive me nuts about it. To answer that question...sure, it could. However, I'd also recommend at looking towards a hardware based solution. Since you're using a T1 you'll have to look for something that will work with that (since the office is already up he may already have something for that).

The easiest way that won't require you going to every machine to add the user(s) to the Local Admin group would be to create a domain group for the users you want to have local admin privs on your workstations (but not domain admin privs in your domain). Now create a simple CMD file with the following command: NET LOCALGROUP Administrators /ADD "DOMAIN\New Group Name" Now set that CMD file as a startup script in GPO. This will ensure that the group is always there and will always be readded if it's ever removed. It's also a good idea to add the following line in case the individual you give local admin privs to decides to try to lock out the domain admins: NET LOCALGROUP Administrators /ADD "DOMAIN\Domain Admins" You could even have a different Group and Startup Script for each OU. I would recommend creating a seperate admin account for them to use for admin purposes though. For instance, their normal account would be something like firstname.lastname and this would be tied to their Exchange mailbox, etc. Then the seperate admin account would be something like firstname.lastname.admin and not have privs to anything except what is required to perform admin functions.

Yes, but when you're gaming you want as much off of the system CPU as possible...

RAM is cheap so adding more is definitely an option. How fast is he expecting this to grow? Personally, I'd get a dual Xeon capable motherboard and start with a single Xeon on it. This will give you an upgrade path without having to replace the motherboard. The Supermicro X6DHE-G-O will give you a REALLY good start with a REALLY good upgrade path. It has integrated video (it's a server so you don't need anything high-end...or even mid-range), supports Registered ECC DDR memory, has two PCIe x8 slots, one PCI-X 133 slot, two PCI-X 100 slots and one standard PCI slot. It also includes two SATA ports with support for RAID 0/1 as well as dual onboard Intel GigE NICs. Start with a single Intel Xeon 3.0GHz Irwindale EM64T CPU. This will provide plenty of power for some time to come...it'll even give you an upgrade path to a 64-bit OS should you decide to do that later. You can add another CPU later without any problems...or even take the opportunity to replace the original CPU with two faster CPUs. As for power supplies, unfortunately Xeon systems are power hungry. I recently built a Dual Xeon 3.06GHz system for home with eight Seagate ATA100 hard drives in it...I ended up using the Thermaltake W0049RUC 680W PSU. I had an Aspire 680W but it didn't have enough amperage to run the entire system. Your 2x100GB SATA drives should be good to start with. The PCI Express and PCI-X slots will allow you to upgrade to a decent SCSI RAID controller later (note the three different links to three different products). If you want to save some money on drives you could even look for a good quality PCI Express or PCI-X SATA RAID controller (that does RAID5). As for memory, as long as it's DDR333 (or DDR400) Registered ECC and of good quality you should be good. 1GB should be plenty to start off with depending on what you plan on doing with it (if you're going to run Server 2003 SBS you may want to think about starting with 2GB). Good quality RAM would be anything from Crucial, Corsair, Kingston, etc. What you have would definitely be fine for 7-9 employees, but if it's growing and will continue to grow for some time you don't want to have to turn around and upgrade the entire server within 3-6 months (entire meaning a motherboard replacement to get faster CPUs...a motherboard replacement would warrant an OS reinstall and longer downtime). Planning properly from the beginning will get you something that will last a few years.

This would work but since you have 250 PCs, half of your network would be without an address.You shouldn't have two DHCP servers serving the same address range. One thing you can do is configure one DHCP server to serve 10.0.0.x addresses and the other to serve 10.0.1.x addresses. Then just configure the SM and GW appropriately so they can talk to each other. Also, you're probably already doing this but be sure to set exemptions for your server IPs.

It looks like that's probably a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 card (notice the built-in Dolby Digital 5.1 decoder). The Creative card will probably help performance a bit since your onboard sound is using software (and hence the system CPU) for sound processing, where the Creative card will do it in hardware.

I've never had a single problem with their customer service. Even when we had a bad batch of 10.1GB drives they replaced every one of them...no questions asked. Those drives couldn't/wouldn't finish their diagnostic utility either. According to your statement...first impressions are everything. Well...my first impressions of AMD back in the 386/486 days wasn't all that good. They were pretty much considered "that other CPU company" in their pre-Athlon days. It wasn't until the K6/K6-2 that they started really getting noticed for their CPU business. Even then they were catching a wave of people who didn't want to give up on Socket 7. You wouldn't catch anyone serious about keeping their corporation up and running using those systems though. Granted, they're still "the other CPU company", but look at what they're doing now...the quality and performance is much better and you find more and more business/enterprise class machines using AMD CPUs.Hell...I was even a believer in Cyrix back in the 5x86 and 6x86 days...they just screwed up everything after that. The current C3 from VIA (who now owns Cyrix) has it's own niche market, but it's nowhere near the performance of Intel's and AMD's CPUs.

You can also hide the screensaver tab so they can't easily change the timeout period. They could still change it in the registry, but if you configure that timeout in GPO as Phyridean mentioned, it'll automatically change back when the GPO is refreshed.

At first guess I would say it's definitely possible. There may be some specialized applications to make this happen, but you can definitely do it with what you already have. Setup the wireless adapter on the Server 2003 box in an Ad-Hoc Wireless configuration. Then use RRAS to "share" the wired connection with the wireless. Now just configure the remainder of the wireless machines to use the same Ad-Hoc Wireless configuration. I'm not sure how secure this is versus an actual WAP, but it should work.

You can't really do that with hardware...AMD is a prime example.

What does disk management show? Does it show it as a valid disk? You may just need to assign a drive letter. I've had this happen with external USB drives when moved from one system to another...it recognizes the drive in every way but doesn't assign a drive letter. I know this happened after a PSU died...but sometimes it's the simplest thing.

If your machine has been crashing a lot lately then it could very well be just a software problem instead of a hardware problem. I'd take the suggestion of trying it in another machine, if one is available.

The 4.3GB drive you have was probably acquired during the time period their quality was questionable (I would consider anything from them between 4.3GB to the 10.1GB drives as questionable). Their drives from that last few years have been top notch...especially the latest models.

What's the make/model of your motherboard?

Look for SLEEP.EXE...it'll do what you want. I think there's a copy in one of the Resource Kits. ECHO. ECHO Installing app.exe %systemdrive%\app.exe SLEEP xx ECHO yes a popup appeared i'll close it TASKKILL /F /IM app.exe Just be sure to either include SLEEP.EXE in the same directory as your BAT/CMD or copy it to %SYSTEMROOT%.

Not only are the cables a lot thinner, but they can also be a lot longer. PATA cables aren't supposed to be longer than 18". A SATA cable can be up to 3 meters (little over 3'), which makes it a viable external connection method as well.Most SATA drives also contain some SCSI like features such as NCQ (Native Command Queueing) and/or TCQ (Tagged Command Queueing). These features can help if lots of files are being randomly accessed at once (normally in file server scenarios).

Agreed...that's an awesome price for that drive! As to the comments about WD's quality...that may have been true several years ago but they're now back as a major contender in the HD market. I run a mixture of Seagate's and WD's at home...and we almost always purchase WD's as spare drives at work (we got Seagates last time, but only because we got a better price). I wish they would get back into the SCSI market...more competition is needed there.

Have you made sure you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard? The latest official (1006) adds support for "new" CPUs. 1005 adds support for Northwood C-1 stepping CPUs. If you have anything prior to either of those then it's likely your BIOS doesn't support the CPU...just update the BIOS and it should work. There's also a 1007.002 beta BIOS. No notes on what the beta BIOS fixes or adds though.

Yep, that can definitely cause it.

What's the model number information from the CPU? It's possible that your Asus P4B266 doesn't support the 2.4 you got. If it's an 800MHz FSB 2.4 or a 533MHz version of the Prescott, it won't work with your motherboard. Reply with all markings from the CPU. If you have the box reply with all markings from the sticker on the side of it as well.

In the future when AdAware/Spybot/etc says it can't get rid of a file...try again in Safe Mode.

Having anything redirect mycompany.com requests to anything else will break his entire domain structure. He may be able to redirect only port 80 requests using a proxy, but even that is tricky. You are correct though, it should've been taken into account during he planning phase. He has one of two options to him to make it completely correct: 1. Rename the existing domain. There are tools available for this, but it's still a major undertaking. I've never attempted it myself and don't know anyone who has. 2. Create a new domain, create a trust between the two, then migrate existing users/computers/Exhange settings to the new domain. A recommendation for the new domain has been made but you could use any number of things: corp.mycompany.com ds.mycompany.com mycompany.local mycompany.whatever_you_want (because you're not limited to actual DNS names) Personally I'd try to go with option 2 so you don't have any leftovers from a domain rename.