Description:
Compared to Windows 2000 Server many parts of the operating system have been rewritten completely and also complete renovation of the user interface was done similar to Windows XP.
One of the most interesting innovation, the logon of a user had always demanded to the domain controller (DC) contact the catalog server (GC) to validate the request, in Windows Server 2003 with a new Active Directory structure this problem is solved with a system cache, which stores some data on the first user logon to later validate subsequent.
There are four versions of the operating system: Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Windows Server 2003Web Edition, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition and Windows Server 2003 Datacenter.
Quick information
| Release date: | 24 April 2003 |
| Current version: | 5.2.3790.3959 Service Pack 2 (SP2) (13 March 2007) |
| Support status: | Mainstream support until 13 July 2010 |
| Publisher: | Microsoft |
| Microsoft Windows Server Web Edition | |
| Main Feature: | specifically for web applications using ASP.NET and XML |
| Recommended CPU: | 550 MHz |
| RAM recommended: | 256 MByte |
| Addressable RAM: | 2 GByte |
| SMP processing: | 1 o 2 cpu |
| Network Load Balancing: | yes |
| Active Directory support: | partial |
| VPN support: | partial |
| Microsoft Windows Server Standard Edition | |
| Main Feature: | specific for small size networks |
| Recommended CPU: | 550 MHz |
| RAM recommended: | 256 MByte |
| Addressable RAM: | 4 GByte |
| SMP processing: | up to 4 CPUs |
| Network Load Balancing: | yes |
| Active Directory support: | yes |
| VPN support: | partial |
| Windows Media Services: | yes |
| Microsoft Windows Server Enterprise Edition | |
| Main Feature: | specific for mid size networks |
| Recommended CPU: | 733 MHz |
| Itanium support: | yes |
| RAM recommended: | 256 MByte |
| Addressable RAM: | 32 GByte (x86), 64 GByte (itanium) |
| SMP processing: | up to 8 CPUs |
| Clustering: | up to 8 machines |
| Network Load Balancing: | yes |
| Adding hot-RAM: | yes |
| Active Directory support: | yes |
| VPN support: | yes |
| Windows Media Services: | yes |
| Microsoft Windows Server Datacenter Edition | |
| Main Feature: | specific for large datacenter |
| Recommended CPU: | 733 MHz |
| Itanium support: | yes |
| RAM recommended: | 1 GByte |
| Addressable RAM: | 64 GByte (x86), 512 GByte (itanium) |
| SMP processing: | from 8 to 32 CPUs |
| Clustering: | up to 8 machines |
| Network Load Balancing: | yes |
| Adding hot-RAM: | yes |
| Active Directory support: | yes |
| VPN support: | yes |
| Windows Media Services: | yes |
Another long-awaited news about the management of Active Directory is the ability to rename a domain controller (DC).
