NT4 to 2003 250 times

[John Hood]

The big project. Migrating 29 Windows NT4 servers and 250 users to
Windows Server 2003 with Exchange 2003. The major bane of my existence
for the past two months. Today was the first day live.

Things I learned.

1: Whomever designed Microsoft Outlook to work in a corp environment
should give me his phone extension so I can forward all of the support
phones to him. We broke the single day record for number of support
calls taken. At 4:30 pm, my phone stopped working.

Geez! what a nightmare! We didn't need to build new profiles for
people, we just needed to change the name of the server on the local
machine. How hard is that? Very! Finally said "forget it" and pointed
everyone a compiled AutoHotkey script that I had recorded in about 10
minutes. Viola! End of THAT problem. I love AutoHotkey.

2: The more a user is likely to need instructions, the less likely they
are to use them. A three month project distilled down to two pages of
hand-out instructions with pictures every step of the way, with little
arrows pointing to what they should click on. We still had about 20% of
the people calling with problems or questions as a result of not reading
the instructions, not reading them all the way through, reading them but
not following them all the way through. Conclusion: The average
business user has about the attention span of a three-year-old.

John Hood
Web Site www.jhoodsoft.org
"The best home and business free software, no ads, no time limits, no
fluff."
"No kidding."

 

[Mel]

The big project. Migrating 29 Windows NT4 servers and 250 users to
Windows Server 2003 with Exchange 2003. The major bane of my existence
for the past two months. Today was the first day live.

Things I learned.

1: Whomever designed Microsoft Outlook to work in a corp environment
should give me his phone extension so I can forward all of the support
phones to him. We broke the single day record for number of support
calls taken. At 4:30 pm, my phone stopped working.

Geez! what a nightmare! We didn't need to build new profiles for
people, we just needed to change the name of the server on the local
machine. How hard is that? Very! Finally said "forget it" and pointed
everyone a compiled AutoHotkey script that I had recorded in about 10
minutes. Viola! End of THAT problem. I love AutoHotkey.

2: The more a user is likely to need instructions, the less likely they
are to use them. A three month project distilled down to two pages of
hand-out instructions with pictures every step of the way, with little
arrows pointing to what they should click on. We still had about 20% of
the people calling with problems or questions as a result of not reading
the instructions, not reading them all the way through, reading them but
not following them all the way through. Conclusion: The average
business user has about the attention span of a three-year-old.

John Hood
Web Site www.jhoodsoft.org
"The best home and business free software, no ads, no time limits, no
fluff."
"No kidding."

If I might ask, what does this have to do with ACF?

 

[jo]

2: The more a user is likely to need instructions, the less likely they
are to use them.

LOL.

 

[James A. Smith]

When did this turn into a blog?

 

[Richard Steven Hack]

The big project. Migrating 29 Windows NT4 servers and 250 users to
Windows Server 2003 with Exchange 2003. The major bane of my existence
for the past two months. Today was the first day live.

You'd have probably found it easier - and cheaper - and probably far
more reliable - to migrate to a Linux-based Exchange-clone (with
Windows clients remaining as they are). There are a couple, although I
don't remember their names or companies right now.

OTOH, nothing can be done about users...

 

[Richard Steven Hack]

If I might ask, what does this have to do with ACF?

I'd say it's a commentary on propriety software. As I indicated in
another post in response to his, he probably would have been better
off migrating to a Linux-based (non-free so off-topic) Exchange-clone
system. At least they'd have saved the license fees for Windows
Server 2003...

Not to mention improved reliability, security, etc., etc.

 

[Vic Dura]

The big project. Migrating 29 Windows NT4 servers and 250 users to
Windows Server 2003 with Exchange 2003. The major bane of my existence
for the past two months. Today was the first day live.

Good story. Let it be a reminder to those who would blithely jump up
in a meeting and say ".. why not migrate to .."

 

[John Hood]

I'd say it's a commentary on propriety software. As I indicated in
another post in response to his, he probably would have been better
off migrating to a Linux-based (non-free so off-topic) Exchange-clone
system. At least they'd have saved the license fees for Windows
Server 2003...

Not to mention improved reliability, security, etc., etc.

Actually, I was commenting on fixing proprietary software MS Outlook
with freeware AutoHotKey. Latest update. About a dozen problems org
wide, most of them solved by recording the fix in AutoHotkey, then
sending the compiled script to those effected. Much easier than
compiling huge sheets of directions (which they don't read anyway).

Also, it would make my job a hell of a lot easier of MS would open
source this stuff. Yeah, like that's going to happen.

John Hood
Web Site www.jhoodsoft.org
"The best home and business free software, no ads, no time limits, no
fluff."
"No kidding."

 

[Adam Leinss]

Good story. Let it be a reminder to those who would blithely jump
up in a meeting and say ".. why not migrate to .."

AMEN!