Smanek, the center delegated the task of configuring a system to you because they trusted you to know the interdependencies of the system. However well meaning,

Smanek, the center delegated the task of configuring a system to you because they trusted you to know the interdependencies of the system. However well meaning, what you actually did was take a tested and validated configuration from Dell and screw it up a little while trying to make it a little better. That's a recipe for trouble no matter what kind of software you use. I think the lessons people should take from your post are - If you're going to dick with Microsoft software, be sure and research the Knowledge Base ahead of time. The number 555087 tells me there are at least half a million known things you can screw up. - If it matters that your system is reliable, avoid optimizing a configuration after it's been validated by the vendor. - Always expect a surprise when you give a customer a configuration with different software. My mail server is a FreeBSD box. It's been running for 10 years and has been upgraded several times. Uptime shows 12:47PM up 473 days, 18:21, 17 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 However just last week someone screwed up mail on it when they installed a new open source library.