* Microsoft strengthens existing tools for Windows Server 2003
Last week, we talked about the new and improved file services functionality in the upcoming release of Windows Server 2003. It’s a surprisingly rich area. Today, though, we’ll look at a surprisingly “not-so-rich” area – management.
It’s “not rich” in change, I hasten to add, mostly because Windows 2000 already has a very rich management environment. Instead, Windows Server 2003 improves on that with some facilities that were first introduced in Windows XP.
There are two exceptions though where functionality is new and “rich”: Group Policy Management (which we discussed among the improvements to Active Directory – see links below), and a new facility for “headless servers” – servers without monitors or keyboards – which we’ll discuss in a future newsletter.
Otherwise, Microsoft has chosen to improve, strengthen or consolidate existing tools to make them work better for you. One example I can cite is the proliferation of security templates.
Introduced with Windows 2000, security templates help to ensure consistent application of security settings in a large part (or all of) your network. Through these templates you can configure account and local security policies, event log and system services settings, registry entries, file system permissions, and even the membership of restricted groups. The change in Windows Server 2003 is that a lot more example templates are included that cover a large number of different scenarios, ranging from very secure to relatively open. It would be worth your while to study these templates before upgrading to Windows Server 2003.
Ten years ago, a small part of a network manager’s job might be to police software installed on the network. Some users, you know, would actually bring in software from home on floppy disks and install it themselves! Sometimes, these disks were even infected with viruses! Ah, how times have changed. Today, it takes constant vigilance to protect the network (and your users’ files) from the viruses, Trojans and worms prevalent on the Internet as well as the illegal software that sometimes appear to be rampant.
Windows Server 2003 expands on the software security rules introduced initially with Internet Explorer to allow you to lock down as little or as much as possible the servers and workstations on your network. You can even require particular signatures or hashed checksums be tested every time someone wants to run an application to ensure it hasn’t been tampered with. That should allow you to sleep a little better at night.
I’ve just brushed the surface here. If you really want to know about all of the management improvements, download and read the “Technical Overview of Windows Server 2003 Management Services” https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/mgmtsrvcs.mspx for all the details. Then come back next issue when we explore the headless server.
