Win2k3 needs a service fast

Extreme opinions, or not? Win2k3 needs a service fast Practically useless say users By Nick Farrell: Thursday 17 June 2004, 10:12 NETWORK MANAGERS are starting to wonder if Microsoft is ignoring them when it comes to servicing Win2k3. While most of the media attention is focused on the latest service pack for Windows, some readers are tearing out their hair, provided they have hair, and stamping on their rabbits, over the state of Win2k3. One INQ reader who is in charge of a large network roll-out for a bank in Estonia said that the process had uncovered so many bugs in the O/S that he had to downgrade the entire project to the venerable Win2k. "Win server cannot operate on a DC as there are authentication errors, this is frequently also true for member servers," he said. Among the list of about a dozen faults, found include the fact that the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol cannot operate on a DC as there are authentication errors. Terminal Server Manager can only manage the local server, not other terminal servers. Win2k3 terminal services have a number of significant performance issues. There is an unexplained system slowdown and https web availability is intermittent. "The LPD service does not accept jobs, because it considers them improperly formatted. Visual Source Safe refuses to work with Legato Networker backup. The vss bug list is VERY Long," he claimed. To be fair to Microsoft, it has released patches for most of the bugs that his company found, but that involved calling VoleSupport and paying its online support fees, he added. "At the moment, until a service pack is released, I can not recommend win2k3 for anything more than file and DC services. For all else, use win2k," he said. Other users who have contacted INQ have said that a simple roll-out takes a long time with no service pack. "What encouragement have I got to upgrade from Win2k3?" wrote another reader. "Win2k is working fine and with no guarantee of a SP1 date there is a huge risk in upgrading." But according to a SpokesVole, Microsoft has no plans to release SP for win2k3 until "much later in the year". Its targeted release date was supposed to be last year, and some thought it would be here by Easter. Now it seems Vole has not even got an accurate guess to give customers. µ