Windows Server 2000 Migration To Windows Server 2012 Essentials

If you’re looking for a nightmare this is the migration for you. I completed the major portion of this migration tonight and while the migration was tough enough due to the Windows 95 and 98 machines when I went to migrate the user machines each one was infected with malware and virus’s so they had to be disinfected and cleaned up which took nearly the entire weekend.

One was so bad the winsock could not be repaired/replaced, oh pish posh you say? Yep, that corrupted, nothing would bring it back save a full rebuild which I did (on a different machine). Every machine logs onto the new Domain instantly and while they are older machines every one of them now logs into Windows within seconds of typing in the password. Prior to the cleanup the fastest one took minutes. Imagine doing this for 7 machines… only two of which are newer than 2005… if you are familiar with the Intel P4’s and I know Matt is then you know what I was in for this weekend.

Not bad machines mind you, just past their prime, you could say the P4 based machines were past their prime right as they were going down the assembly line, but how is a business owner to know that if nobody tells him. Now, they might not be fast but they are still running, that says something.

Anyway, I have VPN and old profile data to clean up and then migrating the Windows 95/98 machines when we figure out where and how much the CNC software will be to upgrade. All in all a very productive weekend!

If I Won The Lottery – Introducing The Muscle Car You Never Heard Of

My wife has been given instructions to win the lottery as soon as possible. When I play, we don’t even get a number, when she plays it teases us so she plays with the ladies from work.

I don’t have $300,000.00 and probably never will, at least not so that I could spend it on a car. BUT, if I DID this is the bad mofo I would toss that money into.

A 2014 Equus BASS 770, granted, stupid name but really, WHO CARES? Name it munchkin for all I care, this thing is pure AWESOMESAUCE.

640hp to start, toss a few bucks more at it since we have money to burn and the sky is the limit! This thing has the coolness of a Dodge Charger mixed in with the smaller more nimble and far superior (hey, this is my dream right) Mustang and you have this unreal monster of a car.

Now, if I could get 300 people to donate $1,000.00 each this could be mine! The odds of that are the same as winning the lottery… one can dream right?

(The pictures are re-printed from the Equus website, I didn’t ask for permission, I doubt they’ll complain.)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Windows 95 Networking SOLVED!

Well, trying to make Windows 95/98 work with the new network was clearly about as successful as Healthcare.gov but at 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999% less cost to figure out plus my resolution actually works!

To the rescue Vmware! I knew I could do this from the get go but who wants a security risk on the network? Not me but since this is Windows 95/98 that risk is there no matter what, so deal with it and move on damn the torpedoes!

I created a new virtual machine on the new server, installed Windows XP Pro onto a 20gig partition, throw 2 cores and 1gig of memory at it and then turn on file sharing which in XP is basically setting up a “home style” network, it’s available to all and it worked perfectly and file access is so fast you can’t tell the machine copied a file! It averaged 100 Megabytes per second, simply awesome.  Both Windows 95 and 98 see it perfectly, of course and since this is on the virtual machine I can mask it in the login script.

The full transition from 1999 IBM Pentium II relic to 2012, 12 cores, 48gigs of memory DL380 G6 is like going from a 10 speed bike to a 750hp Shelby Mustang. I’m stoked to get this completed and I know my friend is as well. The next problem is figuring out how to transition the Windows 95/98 machines to Windows XP or Windows 7, that parts easy but they also have to control a Beam Saw and a CNC so I have a call out to the company that made the software, we’ll see what they say.

Big Matt Comment Response

I was just kidding about the 0_o face   I appreciate any help and your responses did give me an idea or 3 or 4. I’m not using Server 2012 Standard, I’m using Server 2012 “Essentials” so no Hyper-V for me. The computers are old Dell’s from 1997 and 1999 so run Windows 95 and 98 and neither have software compatible with Win2k or Wind XP. I have written the company which is in Europe and they take weeks to respond but they say they do have newer software but the company will have to wait until they have the financial resources to upgrade. So it’s 95/98 for now.

I didn’t want them to be actual members, they both log onto a Windows 2000 Small Office Edition which is an AD server and runs an NT Login script which handles the mapping to the one share they both need to get to. What I was trying to do was the same thing on 2012 Essentials and in the Domain config there is a security setting….. I just realized I never added this security group to the file permissions on the share itself! I just logged on remotely to the server and made the change and I’ll go there tonight and check it out.

My only worry right now is Windows 95/98 can’t authenticate to the new domain or even just enough to run a script so this still may not work. Since they don’t have a budget for a NAS box that could do a simple windows share I am going to go through building the Windows 2003 box (if tonight's test doesn’t work)  with just the basics plus this one share for the two machines to go to. I’ll also toss a Windows XP machine on the network (or maybe a virtual machine) and create a share off of it and they should be able to access that share but of course this is not how it should be done, that ship has sailed at this point I just need a working solution so the rest of the migration can be completed.

Thanks for responding while you’re sick, I hope you get better soon!

Windows 95/98 On A Windows Server 2012 Domain

First, the laptop came, it’s awesome and I’m using it to migrate a network for a friend who has had the same setup for going on 14 years. The server is an IBM RAID5 on a 3 drive array, for those of you that understood that you’re probably thinking right now WHAT?? Yeah me as well. It’s running Windows Server 2000 Small Business Edition and has been running the entire 14 years with NO hardware or hard drive failures. It does almost nothing, there are only a few users so the system has lasted that long on luck and a prayer, oh yeah and DNS works but isn’t set up properly, it’s very strange.

I have probably put more strain on that server in one day than it has seen in 14 years. Anyway, aside from the worry that a drive will die mid migration I have a quandary… There are two machines, a Beam Saw and a CNC that run Windows 98 and Windows 95 and they are very happy connecting to the Windows 2000 Server. They are clueless on how to log onto anything above Windows Server 2003 (and even 2003 is sketchy but doable). I have installed the Windows 2000 DSCLIENT (makes 95/98 site aware) and tried everything else in my bag of tricks and can only get them to see the Domain, they refuse to participate in it and that was a minor miracle.

I’m blogging this because I’m hoping that while writing this blog I might think of something and also that maybe during the day Big Matt or somebody like him might see this and have an idea as well. Here is what I can’t do, upgrade the 95 or 98 machines to Windows XP or higher, the software that runs those machines is designed for 98/95 and both have serial port dongles that aren’t supported above these versions.

I have tried lowering security on 2012, tried SMB modifications and a host of other things only to get nowhere so this is what I’m going to try and do today. Install VMware on the 2012 Server, then install Windows Advanced Server 2000 and put it in workgroup mode with a share on one of the 4 NIC cards so it will have it’s own IP and configuration and then I’m going to pray and see if that works. Server 2012 requires all servers be at minimum 2003 for full participation but this might work… if not then I for the very first time in my 24 years of doing this have no idea what to do next, find a way to get those machines on XP or something else not supported…

I think, stay tuned I’ll post back later…

Dell Precision M4700 Purchase

I needed a laptop for business use and figured I may as well go with the best. Just bought a new Dell M4700. Dell’s latest is the M4800 but the wait time is unreal and at $1,000 more than this one which I got on sale negates the slight (if any) performance advantage.

I’ll be replacing the 320gig mechanical drive with an Intel 520 240gig SSD, (some time in the future I’ll be adding an MSATA Intel 525 240gig drive so I can go RAID0) & removing the Dell Wireless/Bluetooth in favor of an Intel 6300 solution. The memory will be upgraded to 32gigs and Windows 8.1 Pro will finish it off along with Office 2013, Visio 2010, Microsoft Live Writer, Hamachi VPN and a host of other software. For Anti-Virus I’ll stick with Microsoft Defender (used to be called Security Essentials) along with Malwarebytes Pro.

Dell’s workstation class laptops won’t win any beauty contests but they are built like tanks and military specs. This should last a long long time. The fans are removable and the graphics and CPU can be upgraded down the line plus it comes standard with a 3 year warranty as well. The seller sent me these pictures of the unit, it should be here next week, woot woot!

Here is the current configuration:

320 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
Wave Systems Software
Integrated HD video webcam and noise reducing array microphones
Dell Wireless 1504 802.11g/n Single Band Wi-Fi Half Mini-card
15.6 INCH UltraSharp FHD (1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare, Premium Panel Guarantee
Internal Swipe Fingerprint Reader, USH and Contactless Smartcard Reader
Internal English Dual Point Backlit Keyboard
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz
Processor: Intel Core 3rd Generation i7-3740QM Processor (2.7GHz, 6M cache, Upgradable to Intel vPro technology)
Trend Micro 16.6 PC-cillin 30 Day
Microsoft Office 365 - 1 Month Trial
180W A/C Adapter, 3P
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit w/Operating System DVD
AMD FirePro M4000 Mobility Pro Graphics with 1GB GDDR5
Dell Data Protection Access
6 Cell Lithium-Ion Primary Battery
8X DVD ROM Drive
3 Years Warranty (NBD Onsite Service)

Happy Birthday Ronda!