Agreed. Documentation from a vendor is labeled by me to be propaganda until I have proven it out myself or someone I trust very much (extremely small group has told me). As my old support manager used to say "Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see..." joe -- O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition - http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
_____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Adner Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 11:55 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Clean install VS Upgrade of Windows 2003 Drifting OT... I find myself often following behind those "perfect world" folks, having to break the news that their wonderful product (I've seen no monopoly by Microsoft (no pun intended); this seems an equal opportunity offense by sales folks and certain types of consultants of all vendors). I think I get a much better response by customers when I don't simply read them the marketing material but actually describe the pro's and con's in all their gory detail. _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 10:31 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Clean install VS Upgrade of Windows 2003 Oh I'm definitely not saying it isn't getting better. It truly is. But with each release they tell you it is great and go ahead and do it and then the next rev is when they tell you all the things that were done wrong that they now do fine. While they don't tell you it is perfect, you certainly could get that impression when dealing with them and the propaganda that is released. It is the same with all of the MSFT products though, I had an OSS guy chewing me out for it just this week how MSFT tells you how great the product is until the next rev and then they tell you how horrible the last was and how this one fixes everything. I really didn't debate the topic as I have been onsite at MSFT for different events in a two week consecutive period where the first week you are looking at the current product and they are telling you how great it is and it doesn't have perf issues etc that you may have heard about and then the next week you're there for a pre-release NDA event and they are telling you how crappy the old (current that you just saw the week before) product is and how all of these perf issues have been corrected, etc. I am not even saying that people are lying because it was completely different sets of people, had it been the same people I would have called them out for it. -- O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition - http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Adner Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 9:55 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Clean install VS Upgrade of Windows 2003 The statement that with each new OS the upgrade in place scenario has improved, at least to date, has been true. If they said it's perfected each time then I could see your point. I've been to many customers that have done in-place upgrades of the OS with great success. Is it the preferred method assuming you have a choice? I think everyone would agree a clean install is always preferred. But it's a very valid option given some of the challenges that can crop up. _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 6:28 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Clean install VS Upgrade of Windows 2003 I agree with Jorge on this. Every new OS MSFT comes out with they tell you that it is much better at handling upgrades than the last and how bad the last one actually did it. So if someone tells me K3 does it great I tell them to say that when say LongHorn comes out. :) Anyway, you will have legacy settings that stay around when you do an upgrade say like the replication holdback reg settings, etc when you do an upgrade and it could be confusing later when troubleshooting something. Unless there is absolutely no way possible to do a fresh install then I would recommend going that way. Going slightly OT, I even reinstall my personal home clients on a regular basis (normally every 6 months but occasionally that slides depending on how busy I am) to get away from Windows rot and clean off crap that I don't currently use. I am also getting big into using virtual machines for most desktop functions now so that makes things even easier as I can roll back to a predetermined point or just pull the backup image off of a DVD that I made when I first made the image. Of course make sure you update the image with new patches first thing. :) In fact right now, I am writing this email on a virtual XP instance running with about 15 other virtuals on a machine that is on the other side of my house. Also all web surfing to untrusted sites is done through a virtual I have with undo disks, after I finish surfing I tell it to undo and it is ready for the next time. -- O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition - http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Almeida Pinto, Jorge de Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 3:25 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Clean install VS Upgrade of Windows 2003 Personally I hate OS upgrades and try hard to avoid them and prefer to choose a fresh clean install... Although supported when upgrading an OS old stuff from the previous OS is kept and besides that you might run into issues because of incompatibilities with software, drivers, etc. A clean install in combination the migration of the stuff hosted on the old server to the new server gives you a phased approach. Upgrading directly impacts the server and if the upgrade fails you might end up with a trouble server. IMHO: * avoid OS upgrades when possible and only use it when really necessary (like for example NT4 PDC -> W2K3 DC, which is mandatory) Met vriendelijke groeten / Kind regards, Ing. Jorge de Almeida Pinto Senior Infrastructure Consultant MVP Windows Server - Directory Services LogicaCMG Nederland B.V. (BU RTINC Eindhoven) ( Tel : +31-(0)40-29.57.777 ( Mobile : +31-(0)6-26.26.62.80 * E-mail : <see sender address> _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Bahta, Nathaniel V CTR USAF NASIC/SCNA Sent: Sun 2006-07-16 20:53 To: [email protected] Subject: [ActiveDir] Clean install VS Upgrade of Windows 2003 Hey all, Does anyone have any comments/articles, etc on the benefits or concerns of a clean install of Windows 2003 Server VS an Upgrade? My opinion is that doing a clean install keeps system root clean. It also pristinely adopts the security best practices of 2003 Server. Disk performance will improve as well. Does anyone have anything they can add to this? I have migrated a great portion of my network in a clean install path, and now it is coming into question why did I not choose the upgrade path. Any comments would be greatly appreciated, Thanks, Nate
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