Here’s the dilemma: I’ve just purchased a new HP Smartbuy server with Microsoft Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2008 pre-installed.  The server’s ultimate destination will be as part of an already complex network and there’s really no need to run the Exchange 2007 or Domain Controller portions of the server, so what’s one to do?

The ideal situation would be to have the SBS 2008 server act like a domain member, which is not exactly what SBS 2008 was intended to do, but theoretically it’s possible. So there’s a couple of options:

Option 1 – say fuggedaboutit, erase and install Windows Server 2008 on the new server.

Option 2 – save a bunch of time and play Jedi Mind Tricks on the SBS 2008 install and make it act like a normal server instead of this big behemoth of software that I’ll never use.

Sure, I’ve heard that you can manually uninstall everything after you’re set up, but are you truly ahead of the game if you do that? Might as well go for option 1, then!
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