I am not an IT person. I always classify myself as knowing how to fix minor networking/computing issues at my company, but anything that I deem as being "over my head", I defer to our 3rd-party network support group (an individual, privately owned comapny).
We have had 2 servers in the past 7 years, but from a registered operating system stand point, we started off with Small Business server 3.5 (with 20 FREE client licenses), and have maintained our registration with MS, through all of the subsequent upgrades. Due to growth, we have had to install additional client licenses (in increments of 5), to bring the company up to 35 client licenses. Currently, the company is running SBS2000 with 35 client licenses.
So today, Saturday, on overtime for both parties, we were to upgrade our SBS2000 server to SBS2003.
So, there we were (the networking support group and myself) at 8am. We were good to go as far as service packs for 2000 Server, Exchange, ISA etc. It should have been a slam dunk, wham-bam-thankyou-ma'am installation, as it had been in previous upgrades. BUT! Microsoft, and the SBS2003 OS, caused this whole operation to come to a screeching hault!
Small Business Server 2003 comes with 5 free client licenses. Apparently, after scouring the MS Knowledge Base, and several (non-free) calls to MS, we were made aware that the 30 client licenses, the ones that the comapny had already purchased, the ones that in previous upgrades weren't a problem, COULD NOT be migrated to SBS2003! My company has to re-purchase these licenses.
My company is doing well for a small company. We do a lot of business, but on a small scale. Price is always a concern. So, today, not only did my company have to pay myself and the 3rd-party Network Company overtime rates, but they now have to take the hit for the charged phone calls to MS, ON TOP OF potentially re-purchasing the 30 client licenses that we had purchased once before (a 30 client license - seat - upgrade to SBS2003 is approximately $1200).
I don't know whether I'm more cheesed or frustrated.
Complete waste of my flippin time!
What a complete waste of 4 hours for all parties involved!
LLS