fizban2

simplest solution would be be to have a second server that is near identical to the first, 1. Since DC/DNS functions are replicated through all DC's you would be fine if your first DC went down, 2. Having a DFS rooton the first machine and adding the second new server would solve the file issue 3. DHCP can be set to the normal 80/20 split (or more if you need it ) where you split the scope 80% of IPs on one server and 20% on the other, this way if either machine goes down, there are still IPs available for the clients,

PRX is right,

pre activation isn't an option now, there are preactivated for OEM to test with, but that is not used for products ment to be released to consumers

Vista was built to scale, i know people who have older hardware are not happy with this as they have been able to swapp OSs for a long time without having to do a major upgrade but it isn't like that with vista. Reports are that the Next OS from MS will be release end of 2009, until then Vista have to run well on any new HW that comes out between that time frame. think about XP, lately with the hardware that is out, wiether you have the latest AMD or Intel chip, or one that is 6 months to a year old, preformance is largely not noticeable (i know for some it is but for a general user, the difference is not very noticeable) if you do alot of high end gaming or graphic or calculation based work, you may notice a difference but other then that, XP has a limit to how much faster it can scale out. Vista changes this, with 512 it runs ok, a normal user can use it without much complaint with a decent CPU. Give them more ram and things start moving quickly, 1 gig of ram means it moves smooth for just about anyone. Push on to 2 or 4 gigs and wow watch as it just flies. also think about quad core and 8 core cpus, intel is talking about them for next year, will XP be able to utilise those resources? can it scale out and effictively use all the power that is being given to you? what about hi preformance workstations with 6 - 8 gig o ram? Xp unfortuantly only scales so well from what i have seen. Microsoft choose to set vista on the path that it would be able to scale out well with the up comming HW that will be hitting the markets, i know this leaves alot of people behind that have older machines that can run without question but bog down on Vista. In this case in my mind it is trying to decide which is the lesser of 2 evils, you can either have your OS be able to running well on older equipment and maybe not hadnle the new stuff as well because you had to leave out features or could configure the OS to handle both old and new hardware. we will have to wait and see how it works out after vista has been out for more then a month

your best bet is to use the vista DVD and repair the boot up proccess, that should fix the boot.ini issue

you don't need to enable pAE to address 4 gigs of memory, only if you want to address more then 4 gig would you need to enable it

you won't be able to get it down to a single CD, even by removing all the extras

WDS (windows deployment services) will work in conjunction with RIS

that is correct, since home doesn't have the functionality to move into a domain it can't move the machine out of a domain either, you will have to do a clean install to get it out again

if you went to Server 2003 R2, the print manager console (PMC) in R2 will let you map printers out for your users as they log onto the machine, no more having to manually add printers, i would say this would be a great time to implement home shares for your users. setup the share path in their AD profile so that it will map the drive for them when ever they logon

*pinned*

a note on sony's products, they will work wth vista, BUT you will lose some functionality that was tied to the graphics subsystem in XP, thought most features will work

sounds like you might have a bad CPU, or bad board, try pulling down the OC and see if it registers any better

ghassen, is this a new issue? or is this something that started recently. could you give a better description of what happend to cause the actions you are seeing?

when you connect to your VPN you effectively cut yourself off from the internet and join what ever intranet that you have connected to. If that intranet allows internet access through its VPN connections you should still be able to get out to the web, but it would be through the Intranet you connected rather then your home connection

home will give you the same preformance that ultimate will, it is only the feature sets that is limited on the versions. check the vista webpage if you want an exact list of what you get with each version.

vista 32 bit will recogonize the full 4 gig of memory, though if you can it would be better used if you were on a 64-bit system

you will need to load your Vista DVD, choose the repair options at the bottem of the screen and and choose to repair boot option. (sorry can't rember the specific verbage atm)

THe profile will copied to each users desk and used, but since it is set as a mandatory profile and can't be changed any users change won't effect the original and other users that are using that same profile

the built-in accounts shouldn't be used regularly, so profile paths and things like that wouldn't be needed, not having them there will probably deter people from using them if they are used to have things different on their accounts (which would be good)

This is just the way ICS runs, it isn't something that will be fixed with a registry key. remeber ICS was designed for a small network, 1-10computers max, normally 10 computers with just IE and outlook doing normal stuff on the internet (ie no P2P) would not generate that many connections. if you want to scale that connection number you will some device that can handles NAT, newer routers will handle this well and most older ones will also once firmware is released for them.

Recieved my copy on Thursday

true true, just don't let anyone at the scripts or use a account that is locked down.

if you can script the installation to run with elevated access (ie runas with admin account or an account that had admin rights on the box) would that complete the update correctly? test it once. setup a machine and run the update by right clicking on it and doing a runas, use credentials that would have admin rights on the machine and see if the update would run successfully

you should have 2 DVDs for vista, one for x86 and one for 64-bit