Diary of a Wolfeman

Today’s project: retire a wheezing Netware server and replace it with a new SBS 2003 server, and toss in some new XP workstations so we can recycle the Win98 boxen.

Yep. That’s what I said, too.

Thankfully, they don’t have tons and tons of data, because it took most of the day (somewhere around 4+ hours) just to copy the data off of the old server to a workstation. Let me say that again: 4+ hours to copy over 4 gigs of data.

To contrast: when replacing the workstations, I yanked the 4GB hard drives out of the old boxen, hooked ’em up to the new XP box with an IDE-to-USB converter, and copied the drive wholesale in under ten minutes.

If only I could have done that with the Netware drives.

So as they sit right now, the new workstations are in place, the server is in place, but I haven’t configured DHCP or anything so nothing is talking yet. That will be first step tomorrow.

The really fun part is the Line-of-Business software. Installation is apparently pretty easy, but getting a hold of the vendor to find this out took all day. I started calling him at 9 this morning, and he didn’t get around to returning my call until after 6pm – which was 9pm for him, he being on the East coast. Now it’s three hours later, and I am still waiting for him to email me with the download link so I can get the updated installer and instructions.

Yay.