New Server Woes

Posted by: Anthony Swingley
March 3, 2009 - 2:41pm

Tags: 2003, Configuration, Installation, Microsoft, Server

Some times we get to do a new server installation into a new client's network where there is not much that needs to get done with server migration, but more often then not, we get to throw a new Server 2003 SBS into an already existing environment and it is an entirely different beast.

To start off with, installing a new server into an already existing environment has challenges from the get go. A great example of this is the setup and configuration of all the users and groups that exist on the domain already. While this sounds pretty straight forward, you need to make sure that each user name is spelled the same way, passwords are configured the same, and that the groups are all set up with the same permissions with those that you are replacing. Even one mistake and it can cause hours of headaches getting everything corrected and flowing correctly.

A huge challenge with setting up the new user is that Microsoft stores all of the user account names as a list of characters. If you were to look on a computer that had been removed from a domain with domain permissions set up for a user, you would often times see a chain that looks like: {4AF3AD-R3A244-BE342E-11ADCD}. On an older domain server that would represent a user name such as Tom, Bob, or Fred, but on the new server it has absolutely no idea who or what that string of numbers belongs to. The challenge with this is that when you have a new exchange server and new active directory with existing outlook clients connecting, you need to go through and make sure that there are no cached settings that are sending to those old accounts. Functionality that may be effected is:

• Calendar entries - If you wish to share a calendar event that was set up before the installation of the new server, the quickest and painless method to share with other members of your organization is to just recreate the calendar entry. This effects all calendar entries that were set up before the new server was installed, single and reoccurring events alike.
• Email - When you go to email individuals within your organization after putting in a new server the names that are cached in Outlook often times will point to the old records. To resolve this without going through and completely resetting up Outlook is to create a new email message, go to the To: field, click the button, and select all the members of your organization that exist and add them. After that send out a test email message to all of them just to make sure that the cached settings get updated.
• Multiple Email Address - If you have individuals that have email addresses set up that are not in line with your current domain, you need to make sure that you go in to their account in the active directory and change their default email address to the correct one. I have ran into several situations where we set the server up to receive email for multiple domains, but when sending out it always put the wrong default from address. Something that is extremely simple to fix, but needs to be caught early on to help prevent frustrations.

Once you have all the users set up correctly, and mail is flowing smoothly, everything else seems to follow along smoothly, but always make sure to set aside emergency time to handle issues that make come up with networked applications such as financial software, corporate antivirus solutions, and project management software. Everything has its own settings that need to be verified, and it can be extremely overwhelming if you are not expecting them as they all seem to bunch up at once. There are such things as a flawless server installation, but even those may still have issues down the line!

~Chewie