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UPGRADING TO WINDOWS SMALL BUSINESS SERVER 2008 5
versions of them. Unfortunately, the ‘‘gotcha’’ is that they are only 120-day trials. It’s a little
misleading, but these components don’t come ‘‘off the shelf’’ with Small Business Server 2008.
Additionally, there are a few other hardware and SBS 2008–specific limitations, discussed in the
following sections.
Network Cards
On the books, both the Premium and Standard editions of SBS 2008 are designed to use only
one network card. If you are using more than one network card, Microsoft recommends that
you install the Premium edition of SBS 2008. A second network card isn’t necessarily unsup-
ported, but it’s not recommended. This is a pretty big change from SBS 2003, and not necessar-
ily a positive one.
Several common installations of SBS include attaching network attached storage, which may
require multiple network interface cards (NICs). Additionally, using DHCP is fairly difficult to
do without having multiple NICs, though it is possible.
Proxy Servers
Although most small businesses don’t use them, it’s important to note that SBS 2008 doesn’t
support Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA). However, you can place
an ISA server in the perimeter network and connect the separate server (running its own ISA
server licenses) to the SBS 2008 server so that the SBS 2008 server can use the ISA server as a
proxy.
Removal of the MMC
This is the one limitation that irks most administrators. With SBS 2008, there is no longer any
sort of Microsoft Management Console. Instead, SBS 2008 relies on a ‘‘task-based’’ system that
is designed to be as quick and easy as possible for novice users. However, this can create some
small problems for administrators who aren’t familiar with some of the decisions that SBS 2008
decides to make during its task process.
Supported Client Operating Systems
If you’re working by the book, to connect to a SBS 2008 domain controller, you must be run-
ning Microsoft Vista or Windows XP. However, installs with Windows Server operating sys-
tems (such as Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008) are
possible, so long as these installs are just joining the domain controller as individual machines
and not acting as central parts of the domain or forest.
Later, in Chapter 4 on Active Directory, I’ll go over the process of joining clients to the
domain controller and how that’s achieved with Windows Small Business Server 2008.
Upgrading to Windows Small Business Server 2008
One of the major limitations of Windows Small Business Server 2008 is that you can’t just
upgrade from one version to another. Instead, to upgrade to SBS 2008, you have to migrate
user accounts from one Windows version (that is, SBS 2003 or Windows Server 2003) to
another.