dpaengineer Posted March 14, 2006 Posted March 14, 2006 They are taking the p1ss if you ask me. Windows 95?????? it was never a good desktop OS nevermind a server. Simply typing 'win' would have probably solved the problem. And IF they did have a 'PC engineer' look at it, It would have been solved with 10 mins tops. 2 days my butt. I've done a full Small Business Server 2000 with MS Exchange and re-created a few thousand Exchange users in under a day (a looong day mind). It sounds to me like the boss came in... 'Oh, you just do this...' '...Did the guy know owt about computers?' reply - 'Nah, lets screw 'em' I'd personally tell them to shove it and not give them a penny. Trade Member
WatchdogSecurity Posted March 14, 2006 Posted March 14, 2006 They are taking the p1ss if you ask me. Windows 95?????? it was never a good desktop OS nevermind a server. Simply typing 'win' would have probably solved the problem. And IF they did have a 'PC engineer' look at it, It would have been solved with 10 mins tops.2 days my butt. I've done a full Small Business Server 2000 with MS Exchange and re-created a few thousand Exchange users in under a day (a looong day mind). It sounds to me like the boss came in... 'Oh, you just do this...' '...Did the guy know owt about computers?' reply - 'Nah, lets screw 'em' I'd personally tell them to shove it and not give them a penny. just to be "picky" Small business server, is just as it says small and handles a maximum of 5o User Accouns / Mailboxes, so a 1000 must have been Windows 2000 Svr and Exchange 2000, As SBS incorporates Exchange. Watchdog Security (Manchester)
dpaengineer Posted March 14, 2006 Posted March 14, 2006 just to be "picky" Small business server, is just as it says small and handles a maximum of 5o User Accouns / Mailboxes, so a 1000 must have been Windows 2000 Svr and Exchange 2000, As SBS incorporates Exchange. That's what i said It was 2k server plus exchange. Did it when I used to go help out at a place called London Waste Ltd. Honestly though, alot of real servers can be re-built in a day. Trade Member
Guest Posted March 14, 2006 Posted March 14, 2006 We were carrying out PAT testing for one of our clients. They were asked if the server could be shutdown for testing and they said carry on. We did a normal shutdown on the server (i.e. close programs, click start then shutdown, etc) its the WE and THEY bits that confuse me...who is WE and who is THEY....
amateurandy Posted March 14, 2006 Posted March 14, 2006 Er..... Windows 95 Server Does NOT compute :'( That was NOT a server and it certainly wasn't your fault. See: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/WinHistorySrvrGraphic.mspx for the history of Windows NT server etc.
WatchdogSecurity Posted March 14, 2006 Posted March 14, 2006 Er.....Windows 95 Server Does NOT compute :'( That was NOT a server and it certainly wasn't your fault. See: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/WinHistorySrvrGraphic.mspx for the history of Windows NT server etc. aye, but it may be "serving" files to that effect, although not truly a server or running a server OS Watchdog Security (Manchester)
Guest bbhs Posted March 15, 2006 Posted March 15, 2006 aye, but it may be "serving" files to that effect, although not truly a server or running a server OS Sounds like you are being had too me !! Any company worth its salt should value its systems and data - I was a Senior IT manager for a telecoms company and insisted on disaster recovery procedures. Rebuild of the server with all the data @ most 1 day old was a matter of booting from floppies or cd to start the recovery and insert the backup tapes. A few hours at most and several cups of coffee waing for the automated recovery !!
Guest RichardS Posted June 2, 2006 Posted June 2, 2006 If it was 95 then it's not a server not a proper one anyway- it was a PC that was having it's resources accessed on the network. A server should be: - Running a server OS (preferably one still supported by the OS provider) - Be connected to a functioning UPS. - Be equipped with redundancy both in terms of disks (RAID) and power supplies particularly if it is business critical. - Be backed up nightly with at least a sequential backup and at least once a week with a full backup of the entire system. These folks sound like a bunch of monkeys to me and the work carried out by the IT engineer sounds like he spent a day and a half sitting on the bog reading a paper... then again he would have had a hard time rebuilding a system that hasn't been backed up, is outside of it's warranty/service life, uses a defunct unsuitable OS and I suspect nobody knows about it's config. Surely you have an indemnity clause in your contract that states you will not be liable for any damage/loss of business that occurs as a result of you following your normal and reasonable tasks required in your work - e.g. shutting down power for a period of time as required to install security equipment safely? If you don't then you ought to get one! Even if you don't have an indemnity clause I don't think they can hold you fully liable for the downtime as that is as a direct result of them not adhering to the points listed above. If there is a danger of losing the contract and it is one you want to keep then I would suggest offering to pay for 1/2 a day of the engineers time as this is how long it would have taken to get a proper system back up and running following a fault (bearing in mind the load on the system could not have been too high otherwise Win95 would not have coped previously) - Ive done a full system restore on a compaq DL580 that was an exchange server for a large site and that only took 4-5 hours to get it fully up and running again. EDIT - Doh - just typed all this and then seen how ancient this post is...
arfur mo Posted June 3, 2006 Posted June 3, 2006 hi all, we have had some wonderful technical advice and replies here, and they in the main could be accurate. i'd like to put in my 2p's worth here given the system is running W95, i'd bet was running as a 'peer to peer' set up by some 'wizard' who used 'networking for dummies'. (how many of these have i seen ). many customers call the 'server' the big dusty old box in the corner next to or under the coffee machine, the one with a tape backup device installed (and no cleaning tapes). the users simply backup from their workstations to the main hard drive, or perhaps have a backup program which will do this say at 8pm if the machines are left on, which in turn is backed up to tape (sometimes). given we have removed the power carefully (as it seems was done) and the kit was running prior to this, now concider how old this kit is then have a little think about the oft forgotten little item which floors many a techy geek - the bios battery . flat as a road kill pudding, and given the age on a very an old motherboard it will lose the hard drive info, and being an old board will not be set to default to 'auto' (like newer boards), result it can not reboot. go into bios check time and date it will give you a clue id its set to 1986, re-recognise hard drives, set time/date F10 restart job done in 10 mins (if you include 5 taken to clean brown stuff from out of your pants). keep a note of this proceedure in your organiser - it could save your whole day. regs alan If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!
Guest Posted June 3, 2006 Posted June 3, 2006 They are taking the p1ss if you ask me. Windows 95?????? it was never a good desktop OS nevermind a server. Simply typing 'win' would have probably solved the problem. And IF they did have a 'PC engineer' look at it, It would have been solved with 10 mins tops..... windows as a server???!? I'd personally tell them to shove it and not give them a penny. i'd personally tell them to get the server at first..
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