Initial installation was a little bumpy, and I had to keep reminding myself
that I was trying a beta version of SBS. To start with, the setup boot floppies
didn't let me proceed past Disk 3, and the software presented an error message
stating that SBS could not locate enough space on drive C during setup. I
installed a clean version of NT 4.0 using the standard setup boot floppies and
experienced no problems. Using the SBS CD-ROM, I attempted to install SBS over
the standard version of NT 4.0, but the process hung, forcing me to cancel the
installation.
I then reformatted all hard disks as FAT and used the SBS setup boot
floppies. This time, I was able to complete the installation. During the
installation process, the Small Business Server Setup Wizard asks for four
items: name, organization, computer name, and domain name. After you enter that
information, the installation process copies the files from the CD-ROM to your
hard disk and asks to reboot the machine. After restarting the machine, the
Small Business Server Setup Wizard asks for general company information and
defaults to a complete install, which requires very little input from you.
After the system restarts, the To Do List shown in Screen 1, page 72,
appears. The To Do List presents a friendly and easy-to-understand interface for
SBS configuration and maintenance operations. From the To Do List, I immediately
selected Add a New User so that I could start adding users to Dr. John's Health
Services' network. I was impressed with the Add a New User Wizard that stepped
me through creating a user account and setting up access rights. The interface
is simple, and I liked that I could individually assign access to shared
folders, shared modems, and the Internet, instead of assigning membership in
global groups for permissions and rights. The Add a New User Wizard also
automatically creates a mailbox for the user.
After creating a user account, you can start the Set Up a Computer Wizard.
I think a better name for this wizard is Preparing Client Computers Wizard
because the wizard creates a user setup disk to configure a user's account and
connection on a client computer. For example, the setup disk configures Outlook
97 with the user's email account, places shortcuts on the desktop for the user's
personal folder and company shared folders, and installs SBS client
applications. You can also use this wizard to add another user to a computer
already set up for SBS. Several users can use the same client computer, though
not at the same time.
A Look at Client Computers
Using the Set Up a Computer Wizard, I created accounts and setup floppies
for the fictitious family practice. I then installed those floppies on my client
systems. The first client I installed was for Dr. John. The client-side
configuration process involved simply inserting the floppy into a client machine
and running setup.exe. The setup.exe program starts the Client Wizard, a
hands-off, automated installation process. You must restart the system after
joining the domain and again after downloading the SBS client applications. In
my case, the whole process took about 20 minutes.
Client computers can run either NT Workstation 4.0 or Windows 95. Microsoft
recommends an Intel 486DX or higher processor, with 16MB of RAM and 60MB of
available hard disk space. The client system needs a 3.5" floppy drive to
install SBS from the setup floppy. The network adapter card must be from the
HCL, and NT 4.0 workstations must have Service Pack 3 installed. The server
automatically starts the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) service for
the network. On the client computers, you must configure TCP/IP to accept DHCP;
otherwise, the User Setup Wizard won't work on the clients.
After the final restart, the user account is active and the client-side
user must enter a name and password and select the proper domain. The client
desktop displays shortcuts to shared folders and Outlook 97. On my test client,
I knew the shared folders were empty, so I activated Outlook 97 to see whether
SBS configured it properly. Roughly 10 minutes passed before the default window
came up and gave me the "Thank you for choosing Outlook" message. (I
hope Microsoft improves performance in the final shipping version of SBS!) Once
Outlook 97 was running, I verified that the configuration was correct and that
the global address book had all the user accounts listed.
I then proceeded to create setup floppies for the rest of the fictitious
office. Creating the floppies was easy and fast; however, the 20-minute
installation time for each client machine got a little annoying. In real life,
the end users do the setup, and client-side installation doesn't consume much
administrator time. I noticed that when I configured more than three client
machines at the same time, the installation process and network traffic slowed
considerably.
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