Being a Windows admin is a tough job, really

RHochstenbach

RHochstenbach

Administrator
I'm studying MCSA at the moment. We practice with a real server and clients, but also with Virtual PC's running a server (win 2003 enterprise) and some clients (XP pro) on the same network adapter. This was all running fine, until yesterday.

At first the client couldn't find the domain, but all others could connect with no problems. Then I wanted to log on locally to set all domain settings again. But there was a problem....it didn't accept the password of the local Admin account. So I started to download some trial version of a password recovery program. After loading it, I was presented with the message that the trial version doesn't recover the password.

But then I remembered that we got an enterprise license for a recovery program. I just needed to download it off one of the college servers. But we got a special program that is activated with a hardware key in VMware fusion on my Mac. So I just thought, let's boot up Windows XP in VMware fusion on my Mac to get the recovery software. When I booted up XP, I was presented with a nice BSOD. Even Safe Mode didn't work. I discovered that it was caused by a driver called AGP440.sys. So my plans where to load the Recovery Console, and to disable that driver. So I boot up from the XP CD and load up the Recovery Console.

When the recovery console was loaded, it couldn't detect any Windows versions installed on the disk. I thought WTF???!!!!
It couldn't even browse on the system partition. But after that I thought "let's run CHKDSK, who knows.....". It found errors and restored it, and then I could boot up XP.

I finally got access to the recovery program and was then able to reset the password of the client virtual PC, so I could log on, re-fill the domain data and then log on.

So it took me 5 hours to enter the domain name in the domain box. And now I realise how hard it is to be a Windows admin.
 
Dude, you're so, so right. In Windows shops I've worked in, it was a madhouse 24x7. 100% firefighter time with no real preventative maintenance at all. That's why I went *nix and didn't look back; the pay is higher, the stress is lower, and the technology is a *lot* better. I spend about 99% of my time doing proactive things at my current job, and about 1% putting out fires. What a breath of fresh air.
 
Anti-Trend said:
Dude, you're so, so right. In Windows shops I've worked in, it was a madhouse 24x7. 100% firefighter time with no real preventative maintenance at all. That's why I went *nix and didn't look back; the pay is higher, the stress is lower, and the technology is a *lot* better. I spend about 99% of my time doing proactive things at my current job, and about 1% putting out fires. What a breath of fresh air.
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Indeed. I personally think that configuring Linux is difficult, but when it's finally up and running, it keeps running without any problems :)
 
You guys never get tired of these Windows-bashing anecdotes lol...

I don't disagree with your point or anything, just saying :P
 
DaRuSsIaMaN said:
You guys never get tired of these Windows-bashing anecdotes lol...

I don't disagree with your point or anything, just saying :P
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My shop is in the middle of migrating from an Exchange 2003 server to Google Apps, so I have the right to be a bit cranky. :D Pretty much everything else is Linux though, so I guess I can't complain.

Get off my lawn!
 
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