A good motivation to learn VBScript

Take a look at the this post by my dear mentor Sumitha Kurien...

http://www.sumithakurien.com/2009/11/vbscripting-introductory-post.html

After all, administering windows is not always about clicking buttons!

VBScript to find out last reboot time of multiple computers

Since I support an IT environment with more than seven thousand plus servers, I usually write quite a lot of scripts to automate tasks that would otherwise consume my whole day. I am a big fan of Microsoft PowerShell but occasionally do write a few scripts in VBScript. I uploaded one such script on the Technet Script Center. This VBScript uses the Win32_OperatingSystem WMI class to output the last reboot time of a computer specified in a text file.

Find out the last reboot of computers specified in a text file

Top 10 Reasons to Install Windows Server 2008

I came across a technet article that details the top ten reasons to install server 2008.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/2008/bb405959.aspx
A nice read.

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Editions

Welcome to my first blog posting!

Neo from the Matrix trilogy might not be impressed, but I certainly am. Microsoft Windows Server 2008® has caught my fascination from the moment I heard of it. I have been working on Windows Servers for more than three years now and let me assure you folks, it has been a wonderful journey. For those who think Microsoft Windows is all about "clicking next", think again! The biggest challenge for a Systems Administrator is to diagnose what actually went wrong. An issue diagnosed is an issue half solved. In most of the troubleshooting that I have done, it is usually an application leaking memory or a process hogging the CPU or sometimes an corrupted registry key. I will share some of the interesting issues I came across in some of my posts later.

I am in love with Windows and this blog is a humble attempt to share my knowledge on this gem of an operating system. I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer, so I hope I would be able to author some good posts that might help you understand or troubleshoot issues that you come across while supporting the windows component of your IT infrastructure environment.

Oops! Did I stray away from the topic? Yes I did. Sorry about that. So here you go! What are the various editions of Windows Server 2008? Well you will find loads of information on it when you Google or just Bing. Let me simplify these editions for you.

Microsoft has released multiple versions of Windows Server 2008 with varying features to match the needs of most of the organizations. This includes the 32-bit, 64-bit and the embedded versions.

The four main product editions are:

Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition

• Available in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions
• Workhorse edition of the operating system with enhanced support for Storage Area Networks (SAN), storage reporting and improved access services.
• Can host single namespace of Distributed File System (DFS) which can either be stand alone or domain based
• Mainly designed to provide enhanced domain based services like name resolution with DNS, automatic IP assignment using DHCP, file and print services etc.
• Supports two way or four way SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing)
• 32-bit supports up to 4 GB of RAM while 64-bit supports 32 GB of RAM 

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition

• Available in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions
• Specially designed for multidepartment large scale enterprise solutions
• Unlike Standard Edition, supports up to 8 node clustering
• Can host multiple DFS namespaces
• 32-bit supports 32 GB of RAM while 64-bit supports 2 TB of RAM 

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition

• Available in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions
• Only available as a part of proprietary hardware system
• Supports all features of Windows Server Enterprise Edition plus VLM (Very Large Memory) support, allowing configuration of up to 64 GB of RAM on 32-bit and 2 TB on 64-Bit 

Windows Server 2008 Web Edition

• Available in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions
• Stripped Version of Server 2008 Standard edition mainly designed for providing web services to support web-based applications on the Internet or Intranet and/or hosting websites.
• Supports up to 2 GB of RAM and 2 CPUs
• Like all other editions of Windows Server 2008, it supports Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0, ASP.NET and Windows .NET framework.
• Cannot be a Domain Controller but can be a part of domain as a member server
• Supports Remote Desktop (MSTSC) but no support for Terminal Services. So you can connect remotely to a server running Windows Server 2008 Web Edition but can run applications on it remotely using Terminal Services.
• Windows Firewall not included. Microsoft assumes that Datacenters have their own firewall that restricts access to servers as appropriate. 

There is a "command-line" version of the Server 2008 family named Server Core. I shall throw more light on that in one of my post sometime later.

I hope you liked my maiden post. Comments and suggestions are warmly welcomed.