I've not realy worked with Windows Server since 2000 Advanced Server and I'm about to purchase a 2008 (standard) server for a project that I'm working on, are there any specific things I should be aware of?
6 Answers
I saw that IIS is completely different in configuration and so on Also, most of the dialogs are rewrote from scratch I think for you it will be a shocker to migrate :) Download the trial ISO from microsoft website and try to play it on a VM

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- A lot of things that are on in 2000 (&2003) are by default not installed on 2008. You need to install/enable them.
- UAC.
- IIS 7 is very different to IIS 5.

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1I suppose that is a good thing 2000 often seemed to have alot of crap that was not needed installed. – Unkwntech Jun 15 '09 at 11:15
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Yep. You can even install 2008 without the GUI components and configure everything on the command line. Though I have resisting doing so thus far despite years of moaning about pointy-clicky Windows when I prefer the CLI/text-file/script way, as I don't have time for the initial learning curve. The IIS configuration is much nicer, specifically configuring the bits that aren't available on the GUI. Oh, and easy-to-configure dynamic HTTP compression is a welcome update from the rigmarole needed to make it work on 2000 and 2003 (IIS 5 and 6 respectively). – David Spillett Jun 15 '09 at 12:59
windows backup does not allow you granular control of backing up files and directories, it makes one huge volume backup that is a .vhd file. you can restore individual files or you can mount a vhd file using vhdmount from virtual server 2005 as a directory.
usually most people are doing third party backup systems or backing up from another server.gd

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1+1. This was annoying for us as well. However if you read the docs you can command line script it to just do a "system state" backup for example – Matt Rogish Jun 15 '09 at 12:51
Some small but significant changes in AD that came in with Server 2003 are likely going to bite you here too - I'm thinking stuff like what's described here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817433

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The worst possible implementation of a start menu - ever.
Here is a nice story from the guy who were on the MS team responsible: http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html

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