Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 is at the Release Candidate stage:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/default.mspx

Worth looking at is a free ebook available at the training portal:

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/windowsserver2008/default.mspx

Here are a list of headline new features/enhancements
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/2008/bb405959.aspx

Couple of small articles on some of the less well publicised new features of this server OS:

http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=9129

http://reddevnews.com/news/article.aspx?editorialsid=9130

Best news I've seen so far is that you can now set different password policies for different groups within one Active Directory. In 2003 you can only have one rule that applies to everyone within a single domain.

http://www.windowsecurity.com/artic...word-Settings-Windows-Server-2008-Part-1.html

I've been unable to find any reference to my other 2003 annoyance: the inability to set file permissions based on OU membership. As I am failing to find a reference to it, my guess is that this essential (for me) feature is still absent.

2003 is my favourite Microsoft OS, so I hope 2008 builds upon that rather than 'fixing' good systems that aren't broken.

 

Thanks Reggie.

 

Reggie,
As far as your permissions issue. You can assign security permissions to an OU, but you can create a Security group and assign permissions to that security group, and assign users of that OU to that security group.

 

But then you have two groups to maintain. Each time a new user joins the organisation you have to add them to both the security group and the OU. Similarly if someone moves departments both security group and OU need to be altered.

If the information is held in two places, that is a recipe for balls-up, with one being updated when the other isn't. It's fundamentally bad computing practice.

OU membership could be really powerful. You only have to look at Novell Neware Directory Services to see how powerful this approach can be. All it needs is a simple change to allow file and folder permissions to be assigned via OU and you have a very simple tool to manage users within a multi-department organisation.

I realise that you can create "add_user" and "move_user" scripts to ensure that both OU and Security Groups are updated when a user is added or moves departments, but what is the point of having a nice user management GUI, if you have to fall back on scripts to use it efficiently.